Top-Notch Magazine/Volume 14/Number 5/Untempered Steel

by Gilbert Patten

 

A Tale of College Athletics

Untempered Steel

^By
Burt L. Standish

(A COMPLETE NOVELETTE)

CHAPTER I.

The Idol of Cornell.

COME on, Cornell! We've got 'em going! Rip up that line again!” High and dominating, the voice rose above the clash and turmoil of the college gridiron. There was a touch of pleading in it, a ringing note of command, a subtle undercurrent of perfect confidence which inexplicably stirred the jaded men to fresh effort. Yet Hugh Cabell—“Hughie,” his teammates fondly called him, and sometimes “Dixie”—was neither captain of the Cornell varsity nor quarter back. His position was at left tackle. Strictly speaking, it was not his place to shout admonitions and advice, but no one ever thought of criticizing, even mentally, a fellow whose dashing recklessness on the field had won him the right to do and say almost anything he pleased.

It was a rare gift, that power of in fusing confidence and courage. Harland, the captain, lacked it, and proof of his fineness and loyalty to the college lay in the fact that no touch of jealousy or pique had been bred in him by this other man's ability to stir and goad the team as he had never done in all his life, and never could. Cabell had little executive ability, and the tact and diplomacy necessary for the making of a good captain were absent from his make-up, but he played his position brilliantly, and he could lead a forlorn hope in a manner masterly and un equaled by any one of the other warriors. Harland, whom the honor of Cornell and the success of the team dominated beyond mere personalities, was only too thankful for the help rendered by his invaluable lieutenant.

Battered, panting, but with stubborn purpose written on each sweat-grimed face, the men sprang into position, and the line formed again. The sharp, staccato voice of Bobby Lee ripped out a signal. There was a quick pass, a sudden, grinding, forward surge; then out of the chaotic mass Cabell was the first to emerge, face colorless, but a reckless smile twisting his lips.

“That's the way to do it!” he shouted jubilantly. “Four yards, sure, that time. We've got their goat! We're going straight down the field!”

Again they lined up swiftly, and again came that fierce, resistless rush that plowed through the enemy's defense. Again it was Cabell's voice that urged them on.

Up to this moment things had been going rather badly with the wearers of the white and crimson. The Penn State team, solid in defense and daring in attack, had seemed, during those first two quarters, quite invulnerable. A touchdown within the first ten minutes of play gave them the insuperable advantage an early score always creates, and afterward, though they did not cross the Cornell goal line again, their defense was like a stone wall, against which the opposing team flung itself in vain.

Then came the break—a forward pass fumbled, the pigskin snatched up by Cabell, and carried a dozen yards before an unerring tackle sent him crashing down. It was a small beginning, a mere accident, but it was the turning point. After that how could the others fail to respond to the urgings of a man who was always in the van of the attack, and whose quick brain and ready wit had practically turned the tide?

Swiftly the gains, small at first, became greater as the rushes increased in steadiness, growing machinelike, confident. A dash around left end netted close to thirty yards, and threw the play well within Penn's territory. On the ten-yard line there was a momentary rally, a fierce struggle in which men piled up in inextricable masses, and for a moment it seemed as if Cornell would fail to make the necessary gain—would be forced to attempt a field goal.

But the fear which held the watching throng breathless for a moment proved groundless. Stirred to their very souls by Cabell's ringing, magnetic voice, filled with new strength, power, and determination by his dashing brilliancy, the line of panting, grim-faced men plunged on, sweeping back their adversaries, to force the ball at last over that vital chalk line.

The roar surging out across the field presently gave place to crashes of organized cheering which lasted long after the few remaining minutes of the third quarter had passed.

“Cabell! Cabell! Cabell!” yelled the frenzied mob of undergraduates.

Their idol, hearing the sound as the teams changed sides, felt an odd thrill go through him. “One quarter more,” he murmured, the blood tingling in his face again. “Only fifteen minutes left. Surely——”

An arm was flung suddenly across his shoulders, the muscles tightening spasmodically. It was Bobby Lee, his face agleam with hope and triumphant delight. “We've got 'em on the run, old man, thanks to you!” exclaimed the quarter back exuberantly, swinging along at Cabell's side. “We'll make an other touchdown, of course; we can't help it now.”

“Sure thing!” agreed Cabell. “They've cracked, and there's no time for them to rally.”

“Even if they do, we'll lick 'em!” confidently declared Lee. “You've fired the fellows up to such a pitch that they'd break down any defense ever formed. And you—— Jove, Hughie, I never saw you fitter. They'll keep on fighting like demons, but you've turned the tide. You go through their line like a bull, and mix up in every play as if you thought the sweetest thing in life was to be mashed at the bottom of a piled-up ton of solid bone and muscle.”

Cabell laughed and slapped the quarter back lightly on the shoulder. But, as he turned away, a facial muscle quivered, and the bright color ebbed swiftly from his cheeks. Fight like demons? Les was right; they probably would. Certainly they had the reputation of scrapping out every inch of a losing battle, and, when their blood was up, of being none too careful in the manner of their fighting.

The thought sent a chill touch of dread flickering along his spine. Deep down underneath everything Hugh Cabell, the dashing, reckless idol of his teammates and of the whole college, was shamefully afraid!

CHAPTER II.

The Birth of Fear.

IN spite of a demeanor which seemed to stamp him a man ignorant of the meaning of fear, Cabell never went upon the gridiron without a sense of shrinking terror. He who seemed to delight in leading each attack, and whose body so frequently took the brunt of the enemy's onslaught, was living a lie.

There was no trace of spontaneity in his amazing plunges into the line. Not occasionally, but always, he had to force himself by sheer will power to make that forward rush, every fiber of his being crying out against it, and his legs constantly threatening to carry him the other way. When the crushing bulk of bodies piled up over him he had to clench his teeth to force back the cry of nervous apprehension which surged into his throat, almost choking him. He was not first on his feet because—as every one supposed—of an overwhelming eagerness to go after the enemy again without the loss of a single second, but rather for the reason that the press of bodies roused in him a frantic fear that his ghastly experience of a year ago was to be repeated.

The memory of that day—the day which first saw the birth of this monster that had come to torture and embitter all his waking moments—would cling to him forever. There were a thousand common, unheeded things to keep it fresh. Dreary, lowering skies—the skies of that October afternoon when he had first tasted fear; the lined-out gridiron; the looming goal posts, against one of which he had been hurled so cruelly; even the padded armor of the game itself—all were stabbing darts to his shrinking spirit, and never failed of their effect.

Cabell's trouble, though he had never analyzed it, was a life made too easy. Handsome, accomplished, having charm of manner and that rare quality of personal magnetism which is a powerful and inexplicable attraction, he had never been obliged to strive for friendships; the rough places in his path were always smoothed and made pleasant for him by others. A born athlete, from his earliest school days he had always “gone in” for something. At Lawrenceville he played both baseball and football, and excelled in each. He fancied he preferred the latter sport, but through force of circumstances he drifted into baseball, making a showing in the last year which attracted more than local attention.

The first year at Cornell saw him out on the gridiron in September, but, with a chance on the freshman baseball team a practical certainty, he did not exert himself overmuch, and advanced no farther than the second eleven.

Then came the turning point. Cabell's forte was pitching. He made the freshman team without difficulty, and would have risen to the varsity baseball squad but for a twist of fate brought about by Ward Gunnison, his one-time rival, but now his roommate and closest friend. As an athletic sport. Ward knew baseball, and nothing else. With him the game was a passion rather than a pastime; he thought it, talked it, lived it, dreamed it. He was the sort of man, uncommonly clever at the start, who improves noticeably with each succeeding week of play; and at the end of that first season, in which the two friends had alternated on the mound with no very great satisfaction to either, Cabell suddenly announced his determination to quit the diamond and go out in earnest or football in the fall.

“It's no deprivation to me, old man,” he explained in answer to Gunnison's earnest expostulations. “I've always liked the game, and I think when I go into it for fair I'll make an even better showing than I have at baseball.”

He would have been scarcely human had he not shown a certain amount of tolerant pride in his athletic versatility. To make good at one major sport, then deliberately drop it in favor of another, with the certainty of equal success there, is something rare enough in college annals, or anywhere else, for that matter. And he did succeed. Flinging himself heart and soul into football with the enthusiasm he showed in everything that gripped him, he forged ahead to the extent of becoming one of the first substitutes, in which capacity he had the good fortune of playing in three games before that disastrous clash which threatened to be his undoing.

It was a game against Dartmouth, their old-time rival, and from the very start the pace was strenuous. As a whole, the visiting team was no strong er than in former years. In fact, the presence of Blount, a new sophomore tackle, alone prevented it from being weaker. Rumors had been rife concerning the prowess of this brawny addition to the enemy's line, but for once the reality surpassed expectations.

From the side line Cabell watched the giant with a kind of surprised wonder. Tireless, ruthless, almost savage, he seemed to do the work of three men, plowing through the line, breaking up the defense, hurling old, experienced players aside as if they had been mere featherweights, and finally, forcing Cornell to pit two of their best fighters constantly against him.

Naturally the brunt of his attack fell upon Marsden, the opposing tackle, and early in the third quarter the latter was carried off the field with a broken collar bone. Cabell was hastily summoned to take Marsden's place. Without the least sign of it in his bearing, Hugh was conscious of a slight touch of uneasiness as he ran out. The manner in which Marsden had succumbed to the overpowering strength of Blount was not a little disquieting, and did not encourage his successor to hope for much better accomplishment. But Hugh, buoyed by a certain amount of self-confidence and a good deal of innate pride, plunged into the fray as if he had not the slightest doubt in the world of ultimate success.

There followed an experience the like of which Cabell had never even dreamed. There was no actual fouling. Blount simply played the game with every ounce of his enormous strength and every particle of his indomitable spirit, roused to a pitch of fury by the failure of his team thus far to score. Against him the Cornell tackle seemed powerless. Again and again he was smashed down by the superior weight and power of his opponent; again and again he scrambled up, bruised, battered, bleeding. But instead of being stung to anger and fierce reprisal, the constant hammering presently began to rouse in his breast sensations of timidity and shrinking—the first Cabell had ever known.

He was having his first experience in the elemental, brute clash of man against man. In his easy, sheltered life he had never been up against that sort of thing before. A rough-and-tumble fight with bare fists would probably have had much the same effect; but, though he was an admirably scientific boxer, Cabell's easy good nature and universal popularity had so far warded off the experience. His temper had become bland and placid, refusing to rise to that height of hot fury which stings a man to feats of self-forgetful, reckless daring which he might hesitate to attempt in a normal state of mind.

The climax came in a fierce, deciding clash toward the end of the last quarter. Cornell had made a touchdown, but missed the goal, following which Dartmouth, by a series of desperate rushes, forced the ball into the very shadow of their opponent's goal posts. Blount played like a fiend, and to the apprehensive throng along the side lines a certain tie, and probably defeat, seemed impending.

Cabell, breathless, battered, shaken by the ordeal through which he was passing, quivered with apprehension as he heard the Dartmouth quarter's shrill voice. He was wishing fervently that the whistle would sound to end it all, and it was pure instinct which made him plunge forward at Blount's knees. The next second he was slammed fiercely against something solid, hard, unyielding; men heaped up on him until he felt as if breath and life were being crushed out of him. Then came that awful stabbing pain, as if his ribs were tearing through his heart and lungs. He tried to cry out, but his voice was smothered by the press of human beings above him. He tried to force his way to light and air, but was held helpless, as in a vise. His agony grew sharper, more intolerable, until at last he fainted.

He awoke in bed, with two ribs broken, to find himself the pride of the college. He had stopped the wonderful Blount and saved the game. The whistle had sounded at the moment of his losing consciousness, and the ball was discovered at the bottom of the crush, less than a foot outside the goal line.

But from that moment fear held him in its grip. He could never enter a football game without that sense of cold, icy horror—that sickening fear of physical hurt. It was pride alone which forced him to hide his shrinking under an outward semblance of reckless daring; forced him to ever-increasing nonchalance and seeming disregard for danger, lest the shameful secret locked in his breast should be suspected.

CHAPTER III.

Behind the Mask.

SCARCELY had Cabell recovered from the nervous shiver brought on by Bobby Lee's innocent remark, when the teams had changed positions, and were squaring away for the final quarter. The Cornell tackle fancied he saw in the faces of the opposing men a fierce determination which had been absent before. The broad backs, with each rippling muscle outlined under the damp, clinging jerseys, seemed broader, more powerful—somehow, more steadfast. They were stiffening for the final struggle, he thought; making ready to fight their way down the field with every ounce of strength and every particle of skill and cunning they could summon.

Hugh moistened his dry lips; the strain was telling, as it always did toward the end of a game. A fresh terror assailed him, the terror of snapping nerves and shattered self-control, which might suddenly expose to his comrades the ghastly truth. It acted as a sort of counterirritant, and made him plunge into the fray a moment later without a trace of hesitation or shrinking.

Following a volley of kicks came the line-up and the scrimmage, into which he plunged like a battering-ram. The opposing rush stopped suddenly, with the abruptness of a body crashing at a stone wall. There was a momentary swaying back and forth of the living mass, the base of which was held as in a vise. Then the balance tilted, and the whole close-packed, struggling group collapsed, the man carrying the ball among them flung back for a loss.

Following so swiftly as to be almost a part of the same movement, there was an irresistible upheaval of the pile, and Hugh Cabell emerged and staggered to his feet. For a moment he stood swaying, white-faced, sweat-dabbled, a fleck of blood tingeing the grayness of his set lips. Then came that old familiar stiffening of his body and backward toss of his shapely head.

“That's it, fellows!” rang out in the vibrant, compelling voice. “Don't let 'em fool you! We've got 'em spiked; they can't score.”

Inwardly he was writhing, quivering with fear and the shock of his narrow escape, shuddering still with the horror of the weight of bodies which had crushed him down into the trampled turf for an instant before the strength of desperation had enabled him to fling them off. He had suffered no damage this time beyond a few bruises and abrasions, but who could tell what moment might bring the catastrophe he dreaded with every fiber of his being? The next untangling of that mob of breathless, tattered men might leave him sprawling senseless, an inert clod, crushed, broken, maimed—perhaps worse!

With nerves well-nigh shattered, he would have given the world for a chance to quit the game then and there, but there was no chance. He could not bring himself to feign an injury that would let him out; the risk of detection and exposure was far too great. He was bound fast to the juggernaut of his own creating. There was nothing left but to struggle on to the bitter end.

On the side lines and throughout the great stands the swarming undergraduates greeted his feats of reckless daring with bursts of prolonged enthusiasm. There wasn't another player on the team who could come up to “Hughie,” they declared hoarsely one to another between the crashes of mad cheering. Repeatedly they saw him lead the attack or meet the charge of the opposing line with an apparent disregard for self which sent blood tingling through their veins or brought gasps of anxious horror from the lips of the more timorous. There was no one quite like him, in their opinion.

And when at last the game ended, with Penn State shut out and defeated, it was Cabell's name which first thundered back and forth across the field, and Cabell himself was the first object of the enthusiastic assault of the joyous under classmen,

“Cut it out, fellows!” he protested, when they laid violent hands on him, and hoisted him shoulder high in spite of his struggles to keep the ground; “I want to hustle back to the clubhouse.”

“You'll get there, all right, without walking a step, Hughie,” said an exuberant sophomore. “After the game you played to-day, we've got to let off steam somehow.”

Vainly the tackle sought to escape on the plea of catching cold. A blanket was thrown over his shoulders by solicitous hands, and the procession started triumphantly across the field through the close-packed mob of students swarming closer with each step.

Cabell's face was no longer pale. A bright flush—the flush of shame—burned in his cheeks. How little they realized what a sham he was! If they only knew the truth, jeers and sneering glances would take the place of cheers. Once he looked down and met the awe-struck eyes of a fellow freshman fixed on him in adoring hero worship. From the other side presently came a fragment of speech that stabbed him like a knife blade;

“Isn't he corking, Jimmy! If I could ever be like him, there wouldn't——”

Under the sheltering folds of the blanket Cabell's hands clenched spasmodically. If only they would let him alone, and not force all this undeserved attention upon him, it wouldn't be so bad. He felt like a thief stealing the credit of his teammates, yet deep down within him was joy—pure joyous relief and thankfulness that the ordeal was over at last; that he had survived another game without the breakdown and humiliating exposure which he felt was sure to come some day in spite of all he could do to prevent it.

At the clubhouse entrance they let him down reluctantly, and he hurried into the dressing room, the echoes of that last enthusiastic cheer ringing in his ears. Here it was almost as bad. On every lip were praises for his playing and the wonderful way in which he had borne the brunt of the attack for the better part of the afternoon. Only Chester Liddell and one or two of his particular friends held aloof, but that was to be expected, and Cabell felt only too thankful to them for not joining in the chorus of laudation which he found so difficult to accept naturally. Long practice, however, enabled him to treat with a careless ease something which brought no pleasure or gratification. But he was one of the first to leave the clubhouse, accompanied by Geoff McNair, the only other member of his fraternity on the eleven.

The latter's roadster was drawn up on the grass just inside the gates, and it took but a moment to flip the crank and whirl out into Kale Street to the accompaniment of a jubilant running comment on the game by the owner of the car.

Cabell's part in the conversation was slight. He seemed thoughtful and absent, as if his mind was on something quite different and not so pleasant. But as the machine turned uphill toward the campus, he started slightly, and straightened perceptibly in his seat.

At the side of the road stood a touring car, the tonneau occupied by two women and an elderly man. A young chap just closing the tool box, and the chauffeur occupied with pumping-up one of the rear tires, made it evident that whatever troubles they had had were over. McNair, who had slowed down a little at first sight of the other machine, withdrew his hand from the brake, and jabbed the accelerator with his foot.

As the roadster slid past, gathering speed for the climb, the older woman smiled and nodded pleasantly; but though Cabell politely acknowledged the salutation, he was scarcely conscious of it. He saw only the flushed, piquant face of the girl, her gray eyes smiling into his as she waved a slim, gloved hand. As the group vanished, an expression of keenest pain flickered across the tackle's face and was gone.

Suppose that she should come to learn what lay beneath the mask he strove so hard to keep in place? What would she do? What would she think if she knew him for the shameful coward he really was? A picture of her face flashed before him, the eyes no longer alight with sympathy and friendship, but coldly scornful. He winced. Rather than let that happen he would——

His face blanched suddenly, and he shivered. What would he do?

CHAPTER IV.

The Confessional Book.

AT the fraternity house that night everybody was in high spirits. The result of the game, particularly the part played in it by one of their most popular members, roused the entire crowd to jubilation. At dinner they lived over the contest, discussing the various features from every point of view. Later, in the big living room, they talked over the football situation generally, and made optimistic forecasts for the two really big games of the season—Dartmouth and U. of P.

Cabell was naturally the hero of the hour. There was no fulsome flattery or even out-and-out praise. To hear the others assail him with slighting, often opprobrious remarks, the uniniated might have supposed him quite the most incapable football player that ever drew breath. But Hugh understood thoroughly the language of inversion; he knew exactly how much that seeming sarcasm meant. If only it had been deserved, the joshing, laughing comment with its undercurrent of liking, of affection, of admiration, it would have filled him with joyful pride and deep, abiding happiness. As it was, each word cut into his sensitive spirit like so much vitriol.

The end came at last with the unpleasant recollection of the morrow and work which had not even been begun. One by one the fellows reluctantly departed to green-shaded lamps and hard desk chairs, and tasks allotted by unfeeling instructors, leaving behind only a few fortunate mortals with brains more agile or consciences more easy than the average.

With Ward Gunnison, his roommate, Cabell was one of the first to depart. In their quarters on the second floor he switched on the lights, got into a loose, disreputable smoking jacket and slippers, and dropped down at his desk with a faint sigh of mingled weariness and relief.

“Tired?” asked Gunnison, jerking his chair round and placing the light back of it.

“A little,” admitted Cabell.

In reality he was as fagged out as if he had been drawn through a knot hole, but it was not so much physical weariness as the result of the intense mental strain he had been under all day. He was conscious of an almost irresistible desire to unburden his mind to some one—to obtain the relief which the mere act of confession brings. Of course, the impulse was impossible of gratification. The very ones to whom he might have confided his shameful secret without a chance of its going farther were those like Ward, whose faith and good opinion he valued too highly to risk destroying it.

He sat idle for a space, tapping the blotter absently with a pencil. Then, assuring himself that Ward was occupied, he opened a drawer, and took out a flexible, oblong notebook such as they used in chemical lab to enter the results of their experiments.

This book was a record, too, but of a very different nature. The closely written pages comprised the outpourings of a soul in torment. Barred from the possibility of confiding his troubles to any human, Cabell had chosen this method of relief when the strain became so great that confession of some sort was imperative.

In short, terse phrases, which neither palliated nor excused, he laid bare his soul. Not once did he spare himself, but, rather, seemed to find a grim pleasure in making blacker the character he painted with such unconscious power and vividness. There was nothing mawkish or sentimental in this strange, disjointed narrative; no striving for effect in bursts of stilted, high-flown eloquence. But for all that, the pages fairly cried out with a tragic despair which was heart-rending. For ten minutes or more the pencil sped over the white paper, leaving behind a trail of bitter, scornful self-reproach with which the man tried to goad his shrinking spirit into a realization of the shameful truth. It had almost the effect of a stinging call-down from Les Harland, and as he wrote Hugh felt stealing over him a little of the relief he sought.

Presently he closed the book, put it carefully out of sight, and picked out the German textbook and opened it at the advance. But somehow he could not fix his mind upon it. In the face of this vital menace which threatened to ruin his whole career, German or any other study seemed amazingly trivial and unimportant. If only he could summon courage to confess to Ward, or Les Harland, or any one, what he had just written in the book! Not only would the relief be infinite, but there was a possibility that they might help him to overcome his weakness. If only he could goad himself to that point! But he knew that he never would. He knew himself for a moral as well as a physical coward. His wretched pride alone would keep him from acknowledging the shameful truth, until some day a breakdown on the field would blazon it far and wide to send him into the dust, a falling star, never to rise again.

He had a ghastly conviction that this day would come soon. The very thought of Dartmouth and the awful Blount sent cold shivers chasing up and down his spine; Blount raging, invincible, a dozen times more powerful and brutal than he had been a year before. Long brooding and retrospection had bred a certainty that this man, at least, had fathomed his weakness, had read it in his eyes, sensed it by that curious intuition by which players find holes in the opposing line—and deliberately played upon it for his own ends.

“Hughie, were you ever in all your life—afraid?”

The sound of Gunnison's voice—musing, meditative, oddly hesitating—made Cabell catch his breath and grip the edge of his desk spasmodically. For a moment he could not speak. Had Ward found out? Did he suspect, after all? Was his own hand to be forced in spite of everything? Strangely, after that first chill of apprehension, a wave of something like relief surged over the tackle. Of his own free will he had found it impossible to confess, but if his friend had guessed his secret, what then?

CHAPTER V.

Fetters of Dread.

JUST what do you mean by that, Pink?” Cabell asked. His voice was cool and steady, but he did not trust himself to face his chum.

“I mean, really afraid,” Gunnison explained slowly. “Afraid so that your stomach flops the way it does sometimes in an express elevator, and you feel sick and shivery, and your legs wabble, and you hate yourself for wanting to be anywhere else but where you are.” Hesitating, he laughed in an embarrassed way. “Of course you don't know what I mean, old man. I reckon I must be getting dotty in my old age, or else this afternoon made me a bit jealous of you.”

Cabell turned and stared in astonishment at the slight, wiry figure curled in the morris chair across the room.

“Jealous?” he questioned, in an odd tone.

Gunnison ran his fingers through the tangle of sandy hair, and nodded. His freckled face glowed darkly underneath the tan, and there was a queer expression in his blue eyes.

“Sure!” he affirmed. “I don't know what got into me, but as I saw you bucking that line time and time again, at the bottom of pretty nearly every pile-up and always the first to be up and after 'em again, and heard you yelling at the fellows to make 'em keep at it, I—well, I thought of what a poor, miserable coward I am myself. It hurt!”

“But you're not a coward!” protested Cabell.

Gunnison smiled faintly. “Oh, yes, I am,” he returned quietly. “I've always been. As a kid I'd never get into a scrap if there was a possible way out; I was afraid of being hurt. I never played football for the same reason. I've always hated myself for being such a gink, but somehow it never hit me so hard as when I saw your nerve and sand to-day. You were corking, Hughie—simply corking!”

Cabell's hands gripped the chair arms. The momentary hope of relief by talking over his troubles had vanished. Ward suspected nothing. Moreover, something in his tone, a look in his eyes, made Hugh wonder whether much of his roommate's liking was not founded on an intense admiration for supposititious bravery. To confess would be to lose that liking which had come to mean so much to him, and he dared not risk it.

“That's all rot, Pink!” he said emphatically. “How can you be a coward after the way you went through the ice last Christmas to pull out your kid brother, and pretty near drowned yourself? If that wasn't nerve, I'd like to know what to call it.”

Gunnison linked his slim, nervous fingers about one knee. “You're wrong, Hughie,” he said quietly. “That wasn't nerve; I was simply petrified, but as there was no one else to go after the kid I had to.” He squirmed uneasily. “I'm a good swimmer, you know, but ever since that day I've never been able to force myself into water out of my depth.” He sighed. “No, a fellow will do things now and then when he's driven to it which may seem brave, but that's a different breed of cats from the grit of a man like you, who doesn't know the meaning of fear, and risks his neck a dozen times in one afternoon without even thinking about it. I wonder how it feels to be that sort,” he concluded, glancing wistfully at his chum.

Cabell did not answer; he could not. He managed to force a deprecating smile to his lips, and mutter something about a fellow getting used to the thing he did day after day without thinking whether it was dangerous or not. Inwardly he was writhing. Each word uttered so quietly and so unconsciously by the freckled-faced fellow across the room had been like a stinging dart to his sensitive spirit. He knew himself to be an infinitely greater coward than the man before him. Gunnison at least had the grit to acknowledge his timidity, but he, sham that he was, a creature beneath contempt, was afraid to show his fear.

He wondered if Ward thought him unsympathetic and unfeeling. He did not mean to be. If there was any one in the whole wide world capable of thoroughly understanding and appreciating his chum's troubles, he was that man. But just now he simply could not bring himself to discuss the subject. He was unnerved, worn to a frazzle, sick to death of the lies he had been living, if not actually telling by word of mouth. And so be turned their talk into other channels. There was a brief period of half-hearted grinding, then bed.

Because of a good measure of real physical weariness, Cabell slept well and woke refreshed. He awoke, too, with hope revived and stronger in his breast, for hope is difficult to kill. One thinks it dead beyond the possibility of resurrection, then one little thing—a word, a phrase, a smile, perhaps; or just a sweep of sunlit, cloudless sky—brings back to palpitating life something one felt had gone forever.

After breakfast Hugh ran up to his room, closed the door, fished out the diary from the bottom of the drawer, and read it over from beginning to end. It was not easy. He had to force himself to do it, and not for the first time. He had a vague hope that somehow this shameful record of his cowardice and double life might goad him to genuine, manly courage. It was this reason alone which held his hand at moments when the temptation to destroy the book was strong; this reason mainly which moved him to add at intervals those stinging, self-reproachful paragraphs to something which already made him tingle with shame and humiliation. The perusal hurt this morning, as always, but also it had something of the effect he strove to get.

When he had finished, Cabell stood motionless for a moment, face crimson, eyes full of the most bitter scorn, lips moving with muttered vows of strangling the monster which rode him like the Old Man of the Sea, and made his life so utterly miserable and wretched.

He joined the group of his classmates in the hall below, and sallied forth into the crisp October morning in a mood almost of exhaltation. He would conquer! It might be hard at first, but he could do it if he brought every ounce of his will power into the struggle. After all, what was there really to be afraid of? Knocks and bruises were matters of no consequence, and few men were ever badly hurt even in the most desperately contested game. He had been wretchedly weak not to take this determined stand long ago.

The mood continued all morning. For weeks untold he had not been so happy and carefree. The conviction that all the worry and deception was practically over and done with made him feel like shouting aloud in the exuberance of his relief.

The reaction was staggering. Hugh arrived a little late for practice, and found Dartmouth's recent victory over Williams the principal topic of conversation in the dressing room. It had been a sensational game from start to finish, with Ledgard Blount's tremendous power and fierce aggressiveness the most notable feature. As during the previous season, but with vastly increased strength and cleverness, the giant tackle had carried everything before him, leaving in his wake a trail or bruised, battered, limping players who had failed utterly to hold out against the human battering-ram.

As Cabell listened to tbe details which one of the scrub had gathered from an eyewitness, he felt again that cold, shrinking dread he thought had gone forever. He tried his best to down it, but without avail. A vivid picture of the raging, brutal Blount hurling his huge bulk crushingly upon the line—upon Cabell himself—flashed into his mind and stayed. It was there when he left the clubhouse with the others; there when the varsity lined up against the scrub. As he plunged into the first scrimmage cold sweat broke out all over the tackle's body; despair filled his soul.

The fetters of fear still held him. Worse yet, they were drawing tighter. Up to this time the shrinking had not come upon him save in the progress of a real game against another college team. Now he was afraid of his own scrub.

CHAPTER VI.

The Impassable Wall.

IN the days which followed it was remarkable that Cabell's manner did not arouse suspicion, at least in the intimate association of the fraternity house. No matter how great his self-control, no man can labor under such a strain and suppress every sign of it. The constant mental turmoil and struggling against what seemed more and more inevitable brought about in Cabell a certain brusqueness and irritability. Periods of ill-concealed depression alternated with bursts of feverish gayety that could not fail to attract attention.

His associates noticed it, and indulged in speculative comment now and then, but the tackle's behavior on the field made it impossible for any one to guess the truth. One and all, his friends decided that Hugh was following the example of many other members of the varsity, and allowing himself to worry unduly over their chances in the two big games of the season—the only games in the entire schedule which really counted with loyal Cornell men.

Unobtrusively and with careful optimism they sought to encourage him by comments on the improvement shown by this or that member of the team, by score comparisons, and in many other ways. His own playing was so dashing, so nearly flawless, that no one thought of referring to it. He seemed to them merely a victim of too severe training, which so often results in mental strain and unnecessary anxiety.

So Cabell was left alone to fight a losing battle against that insidious enemy which was slowly but surely undermining his whole being. The struggle, heretofore intermittent, became nearly continuous. The hours of practice became hours of torment as keen, almost, as the distress he had previously felt only during the regular game. He fought hard against it by every means he could think of, but in vain. And when the swift passing of a week brought Saturday's game with Oberlin, a team of lightweights never to be feared, Hugh had a ghastly feeling that the break he dreaded must come then and there.

It did not—quite. He managed to hold himself together, but it was only by the narrowest possible margin that he escaped exposure. Afterward, in the dressing room, happening to catch Chet Liddell's gaze fixed on him with a curious intentness, he wondered, with a sudden chill, whether he had escaped after all. Did the fellow suspect anything? From his place on the scrub he was always watching and waiting for a chance to pick flaws in the playing of the man he hated, and now it looked as if his waiting had been rewarded. The longer Hugh thought about it the more certain he became. Some little slip, unthought of at the time, might easily have given Liddell an inkling of the truth; and, knowing the man as he did, Hugh realized that he would not keep his lips sealed.

Cabell shivered. Then a spark of anger blazed up, rousing his manhood to a last desperate stand against impending ruin. If his resolution did fail him, if he should stumble and fall, Liddell would be the first to leap upon his prostrate spirit and trample it with deep delight. The two had not got on well together, although there had never been an open outbreak; but from the time when Cabell's spectacular entrance into football, a year ago, deprived his classmate of a chance to make the varsity, and set him back among the lesser substitutes, relations had been strained. Another feature had lately entered into the affair, adding to Liddell's resentment. He had made several unsuccessful attempts to gain the friendship of Barbara Winslow, the popular niece of one of the university professors, and, instead of attributing his failure to the charming young woman herself, he laid the blame on Cabell. Cabell was one of the favored few, he reasoned; disliking him, Hugh had deliberately turned Miss Winslow against him by scurrilous innuendoes, if not by actual lies.

Hugh himself knew nothing of this latest addition to the fanciful score against him, although he was made aware, by the growing venom in Liddell's manner, that the fellow's dislike had increased. He knew that his own downfall would be greeted with joy in that quarter, and it was this realization which stirred in him a resentful determination to thwart and disappoint the sorehead.

With an effort—so many things had lately come to mean an effort—he pulled himself together and started a discussion regarding the probable result of Dartmouth's game with Penn State that afternoon. Determination to accomplish his purpose made him forget his fears for a space. Without a qualm he pointed out the strength and weakness of Cornell's greatest rival. He even dissected the mighty Blount, contending that the man's personality and reputation for being invincible had more to do with his phenomenal success on the gridiron than anything else. The fellow was only human; if they went after him hard enough, and kept hammering at him, they'd get him in the end as effectually as if he were the weakest player in the line.

Again his words put new heart into the doubters, but it was the same old story of rousing in others a courage and confidence totally lacking in his own breast. When the immediate necessity for putting up a good front before Liddell had passed, Cabell was seized again in the grip of that monster, made stronger, perhaps, for visions his own words had conjured up.

Saturday night passed, and the following morning brought news of Penn State's defeat by Dartmouth with a score of 18 to 0; also fresh details of Blount's success in tearing to pieces the weaker team's defense.

Unable longer to sit about and listen to the resulting talk and surmise, which continued into the afternoon, Cabell slipped out and started up the hill to Professor Martin's residence. It seemed to him that the one person in the world capable of taking his mind off himself was Barbara Winslow. Her manner was sympathetic, her personality soothing; yet, after a scant fifteen-minute call, Hugh departed more downcast than before.

The girl had seemed quieter and more reserved than usual. Once or twice he caught her eyes fixed on him, and in them he thought he detected something like regret, or pity. He realized that his abnormal sensitiveness was probably entirely to blame, and that he was reading in her manner something which wasn't there at all; but the dread of what she would think if she learned the truth returned tenfold, putting to flight any hope of relief in her presence.

He got through his classes in the morning, but back at the house, toward noon, he was filled with a curious consciousness of having reached a crisis. The thought of the Dartmouth game, less than a week off, loomed constantly in his mind, and with it a picture of Blount, a dozen times more powerful and menacing than he had been before. Shut up in his room, he took out the diary and with feverish haste set down a brief record of his struggles in the past two days. He paused an instant, perspiration dampening his forehead. Then his pen moved swiftly on, almost without his conscious volition.

“In spite of everything,” he wrote, “I have a ghastly feeling that I shan't be able to face it—that I'll show myself a spineless coward by quitting before the Dartmouth game.”

The pounding of feet on the stairs and the sound of voices made him drop his pen, shut the book, and thrust it hastily under a pile of books and papers on the desk. He had scarcely taken a sheet of note paper from a pigeonhole when the door was flung open, and Gunnison, Ken Gardner, and McNeil, all talking at once, entered without ceremony.

“Boning, you old lobster!” accused Gardner, who considered that occupation a woeful waste of time. “Oh! Writing a letter, eh? Well, listen! Old Bart's going to land in town this afternoon and stay all night. What do you know about that!”

“Great, isn't it?” put in Gunnison. “We haven't set eyes on him since June.”

“That's fine!” exclaimed Cabell delightedly. He hesitated for a fraction of a minute. “How's he able to get off? What time is he due?”

There was not the slightest visible change in his voice or manner, but during that momentary pause his whole point of view had been suddenly reversed. At first the thought of seeing Bart Hilliard again aroused in him the keenest delight, for the older man held a peculiar place in Hugh's esteem. In spite of the fact that certain of his classmates who knew him only superficially had christened him “The Saint,” Hilliard was far from being in the category of the “too-goods”; he was simply a human, lovable fellow with a fine sense of honor and a quality of deep sympathy which drew men to him like a magnet.

But on the heels of that first natural enthusiasm at the prospect of seeing again the man he liked so well, there came to Cabell a flood of remembrance, and with it a shrinking from such an encounter just then. Bart was sure to size up the situation and guess what was troubling him. It was a way he had, bred partly from that very sympathy which was usually such a boon to others, partly from a keenly analytical mind. He would be certain to strip the painfully adjusted mask from Cabell's emotions. The thought of losing Hilliard's liking and regard, as he surely must if the truth were known, was intolerable. He forced himself to take part in the talk of the other fellows, and presently went down with them to lunch, but his mind was elsewhere, and the only thing that stuck was the realization that Bart would arrive late in the afternoon, and come directly to the frat house.

After lunch there was the usual hustle to make the chemical lab on time. With a mind still wholly intent on his latest difficulty, Cabell snatched up books and papers from his desk, and followed the others. His abstraction continued in the laboratory, making him useless for any sort of work. He simply pottered aimlessly about, while Ward, who saw that something was troubling his chum, looked after the details of the scheduled experiments without comment. When the time came to enter the results Hugh found that he had forgotten even his notebook, in spite of a vague impression of having taken it from the desk with the other things. It was not in the pile he had dropped carelessly on the farther end of the bench, so he must have left it behind.

It did not seem a matter of the least importance. The everyday routine of books and classrooms and laboratories had become dwarfed and belittled by the imminence of that peril which loomed bigger with every passing moment. The question that troubled him now was: What could he do to stave off the meeting with Hilliard and all that must surely follow in its wake?

It seemed as if his mind, worn out by constant deceptions of the past week, had suddenly refused to work. It was as if he had come face to face with an impassable stone wall which he was too tired even to try to climb.

Presently he found himself watching Ward as he entered neatly in his notebook the figures and tabulations of the first experiment. A moment later, in a curiously detached fashion, as if it were some one else speaking, he heard himself remarking that he could copy that off later, so there wasn't much use in his waiting around any longer. Then he walked out.

CHAPTER VII.

The Quitter.

FIFTEEN or twenty minutes later Ward Gunnison finished his work, and, gathering up his books, also departed from the laboratory. The day was clear and bracing, with a touch of Indian summer lingering in the air, and he had promised McNeil to play a few sets of tennis on the house courts. Geoff had not returned, however, so Gunnison got into flannels and tennis things, then sat down at his desk to scratch off a belated home letter in the moments of waiting.

He had barely scrawled the date and superscription when the slamming of a door below made him straighten up and glance expectantly toward the head of the stairs, visible from where he sat. Geoff was almost on time for once in his life, he thought, as the thud of hastily ascending feet came to his ears. A moment later his eyebrows went up in surprise at the sight of his roommate, who, he supposed, had long ago started for Percy Field and the regular afternoon practice. A jocular question rose to his lips, but the sight of his chum's face choked it back.

With eyes oddly dilated, Cabell flung himself into the room, and slammed the door behind him. For an instant he stood motionless, breathing hard, as if he had been running. Then he tossed a crumpled ball of yellow paper down before the astonished Gunnison.

“Read that,” he said hoarsely. “It just came.”

He had disappeared into the bedroom before Ward could smooth out the ominously colored sheet which he knew before he had even touched it to be a telegram.

“Mother dangerously ill,” he read. “Come at once.”

It was signed “Beverley Cabell,” and sent from Boston, where, Ward knew, his chum's mother and sister were spending the winter with Mrs. Cabell's brother. He sprang up and hastened into the bedroom. Cabell was throwing things into a bag which stood open on the table. He did not look up. Ward noticed that his hands were trembling a little, and that his thick hair lay plastered on his forehead with perspiration.

“I'm mighty sorry, old fellow,” Gunnison said slowly. “But probably it isn't half as bad as it sounds. Very likely by the time you get there you'll find everything all right—or nearly so.”

For a moment Cabell did not answer. His head was bent over the bag, into which he thrust a last article, and snapped it shut.

“Thanks, old man,” he said at last, turning to the closet for his derby. “You're mighty good, but—I don't know. You'll let Harland know? I've just time to make the train.”

“Don't worry about that for a second. I'll chase down to the field right away and put him wise. Good-by and good luck. Don't forget to drop me a line.”

Their hands met in a firm grip, but even then Cabell's glance was averted. A moment later he was pounding down the stairs, leaving Gunnison in the middle of the bedroom, his freckled face bearing an expression of troubled concern which no worries of his own had ever brought there.

Presently he moved to the window and glanced out. At the corner Cabell was just swinging aboard a car. As Hugh was swept out of sight Gunnison, recalled to the duty before him, slid into a sweater, grabbed up a hat, thrust the telegram into his pocket, and ran downstairs.

In the clubhouse he found the squad ready to take the field, one and all wondering what had become of the missing player. Ward's first words to Harland brought the men flocking around him, and in an instant the dressing room resounded with exclamations of profound dismay.

Cabell gone, and the Dartmouth game less than a week off! Without the splendid work and magnetic presence of the star tackle they wouldn't have a ghost of a chance against the New Hampshire university. They would be mowed down, snowed under, beaten unmercifully. Led by the invincible Blount, the opposing team would plow through their line as it had done a year before, only a hundred times worse; there would be no Cabell to stiffen the defense, lead the attack, and beat Dart mouth's formidable tackle at his own game.

Not all the men, or even the majority, openly voiced this opinion; but, as the telegram was passed from hand to hand, the faces of those who remained silent were eloquent of the utmost consternation. At first Gunnison was indignant that no one seemed to consider Hugh himself and all this blow might mean to him. But swiftly he realized that the fellows were not really heartless and lacking in consideration. It was natural that the tremendous gap made by Cabell's probable absence from the team should be first and foremost in their minds.

“That's about enough, fellows,” suddenly broke in Lester Harland peremptorily. “We're mighty hard hit, I admit, but there's never anything gained in crying over spilled milk.”

His eyes ranged swiftly over the downcast faces around him, and not one of the men who watched him guessed that he would have given the world for a measure of that magnetic quality with which the absent tackle had so often at crucial moments infused fresh courage and confidence into his teammates.

“Besides,” went on the captain grimly, “we're not going to admit that the strength of the team lies in one man, without whom we are powerless. Hughie may come back in time—I hope he does. But we've got to go ahead on the supposition that he won't, and fight all the harder on Saturday to make up for his absence. We've wasted too much time already. Chet, hop in at left tackle and see what you can do to fill the hole.”

As the players started in a body for the door, Gunnison stepped back against the lockers, his face downcast and troubled. If he had not already known how great a power his friend was on the varsity he would have learned it now in a passing glance at that crowd. Here a shoulder sagged, there a head drooped or a foot dragged. Scarcely was there a face that did not show, more or less, the disheartening concern felt by its owner at the thought of going into a game without Hugh Cabell.

There was one notable exception. Chester Liddell strode along with shoulders squared and arms swinging. As he passed Gunnison their eyes met, and into Liddell's face there leaped an expression of such sneering triumph that Ward scowled and his teeth came together with a snap.

“The rotter!” he muttered, glaring after the upright figure swinging along so blithely. “He's glad! He doesn't give a hang for the team so long as he has a chance to step into Hughie's shoes, which he couldn't fill if he tried a thousand years.”

Presently he walked out upon the field, and watched the practice for a while. But it was so lacking in snap and go that he soon gave it up and went away. He was a fine example of the best type of college man—loyal to the core, and so keenly enthusiastic about everything which tended toward Cornell's supremacy that it hurt to see this slipshod performance and realize that it was doubtless a forecast of what would happen on the following Saturday.

Back at the house he learned that McNeil had shown up at last, and, finding no word from him, had gone off again in his car. Somehow it annoyed Gunnison, though he acknowledged that he himself was altogether to blame. He was in the mood for an hour or so of slashing tennis, not so much for the desire for exercise as to take his thoughts away from the unfortunate occurrences of the afternoon. But there was no one else in the house with time or inclination to play, so at last he went up to his room with the idea of getting through with enough work to make him free that evening.

The project was not altogether successful. Constant thoughts of Hugh and the possible tragedy toward which he was speeding, mingled with uneasy remembrances of the discouraged squad he had left down on the field, rendered impossible any close application to books. Finally, with an exclamation of impatience, he grabbed up his things, left the house, and started for the gym.

Half an hour's vigorous exercise, followed by a refreshing swim in the tank, went far toward restoring him to a normal frame of mind. After all, things might not come to the worst. Possibly Mrs. Cabell would take a turn for the better before the last of the week, and if Hugh got back as late, even, as Saturday morning, he could still go into the game.

The main gymnasium had been empty when Ward left it for the tank, but now, as he approached the communicating doors, he heard the voices of a number of persons, all of them apparently talking at once. A step or two farther on he paused, frowning at the recognition of Chester Liddell's unpleasant tones. As he hesitated, wondering how he could bring himself to meet the fellow he so deeply disliked without saying something disagreeable, he caught a sentence or two which seemed to send every drop of blood in his body flaming into his freckled face.

“Bah!” sneered Liddell. “Hugh Cabell's mother is no more sick than mine is! He ran away because he was afraid—afraid to face the Dartmouth team and Ledge Blount! Afraid of being hurt, the quitter!”

The chorus of incredulous exclamations scarcely penetrated to Gunnison's consciousness. The blood had drained swiftly from his face, leaving it white, with eyes that glittered strangely from between narrowed lids. He trembled slightly. Reaching out one hand, he gripped the edge of the open door.

“You don't believe me?” came again in Liddell's voice. “Well, I'll prove it!”

There was a brief pause, the sound of a heel clicking on the concrete floor, the slight creaking of a locker door. Ward stepped nearer the opening between the rooms. He had ceased to tremble; something in the tense lines of his lithe body reminded one of a panther crouching to spring.

“It's in his own handwriting,” resumed Liddell gloatingly; “a sort of diary. I picked it up in the lab this afternoon, and stuck it in here after I'd discovered what it was. Just listen to this:

“Every day the horrible fear seems to get a tighter grip on me. It was all I could do to get through the game yesterday without blowing up. To be afraid of Oberlin! What will happen a week from now against Dartmouth and Ledgard Blount is only too certain. If there was any way of getting out of it. I'd take it, but there isn't. I've got to stick it out as long as I can, and then— Heaven help me!

“You see,” jeered Liddell, “he couldn't stand the strain, so he skipped out. For all his bluff and big talk, he's a miserable coward!”

“You lie!”

The two words, repressed, almost quiet, were charged with such a steely menace that the members of the little group whirled as one man to stare in amazement at the slim chap with the pale, freckled face who advanced slowly toward them from the tank room. Liddell hesitated an instant, then broke into a raucous laugh.

“Did I hear you make a remark, Pinkie?” he drawled contemptuously.

“I said you were a liar!” was the answer, as Gunnison reached the edge of the group and stopped.

The big man flushed angrily, and took a step forward. Then he paused and laughed again. “Of course you'd say that!” he sneered. “Everybody knows you think the sun rises and sets by this precious friend of yours. Luckily I've got the proof of what I say right here in my hand. Do you want me to read another extract?”

“No!” Like an explosive the word issued from Gunnison's pale lips; like a projectile from a gun his wiry figure leaped forward. With one hand he gripped the book and tore it from Liddell's grasp; with the other he dealt the football player a blow in the face which sent him staggering.

CHAPTER VIII.

A Fair Test.

LIDDELL'S roar of fury resounded through the vaulted room, and, recovering, he came lunging back at his slighter antagonist. Instinctively the latter dodged. He had jammed the notebook swiftly into his pocket.

As Liddell pulled himself up and whirled around, two of the onlookers who had been dazed by the suddenness of the fracas recovered themselves and sought to stop the fight. One of them received the full impact of a blow intended for Gunnison, which sent him skidding across the concrete floor. The other got the big man's shoulder, and that was enough to discourage him from further interference. There was a swift widening of the circle as the men stared in incredulous bewilderment at the unexpected encounter.

Time and time again the lightweight escaped the other's swinging blows by the merest hair. Once or twice he did not escape them, and they bowled him sprawling on the hard concrete in a manner which should have ended the fight then and there. To the astonishment of every witness he came to his feet each time like a panther, and like a panther he bounded at his husky antagonist. Scarcely a blow that he struck was wholly wasted.

Liddell, slower and more unwieldy, at length began to feel the effects of his own furious rushes back and forth. His breath came in gasps; at last he slipped and fell.

Before the big fellow could get to his feet Gunnison was raining blows upon his head, his face, his body. He knew nothing of the rules of scientific boxing, and cared less. He was filled with white-hot rage against the man who had slandered the best friend he had ever known; lifted beyond the pale of fear, of reasoning, of caution. Absolutely forgetful of himself, and transformed into quite another being, the ferocity of his attack was so overpowering that Liddell, beaten down again and again, presently ceased his efforts to rise, and fell back dazed and only half conscious. Then, at last, three or four of the astonished spectators rushed forward and dragged the victor away.

“Let me alone!” panted Gunnison, jerking his arms free. “I'll choke him with his lies! I'll make him swallow them!”

Liddell made an unintelligible sound, half grunt, half groan, and rolled over on his back, breathing heavily.

“Quit, Gunnison!” warned one of the witnesses peremptorily. “He's all in!”

“Is he?” said Ward, astonished. “So soon? Then I'll quit; but—— Remember, Liddell,” he went on harshly, “if you ever open your mouth again to slander Hugh Cabell, or try to put across any more of your lying forgeries against a man who's done more for the varsity than you ever could in a thousand years. I'll give you a real thrashing!”

Without another word, or even a glance at the gaping group, he turned and walked to the door, head up and shoulders squared. Outside, beyond the reach of curious eyes, he paused and, with a hand that shook a little, took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead and face. There was a fleck of red on the linen, and for an instant he stood looking at it with an odd expression of surprise. He had not been conscious of any hurt until that moment, but now he became aware of a stinging smart on one cheek and sensations of sundry bruises on various other parts of his anatomy.

As he left the gym and cut through the campus toward the fraternity house, a curious sense of unreality came over him with a rush. Was it actually he who not only had provoked a fight with Chet Liddell, but licked him—he, an acknowledged coward, who had always been afraid of physical encounters? It seemed incredible. How had he ever brought himself to conquer his detested timidity and act the part of a man for once?

The recollection of Liddell's lying slanders against Hugh stained his face a vivid crimson, and answered the question in an instant. It was enough to fire the veriest poltroon to action. What a cur the fellow was, deliberately to blacken the character of a man unable to defend himself! Liddell must have been deranged to expect any one to believe his defamatory allegations. The idea of Cabell, the fearless mainspring of the varsity, accused of cowardice would have been laughable had it not shown up a spirit so contemptible that Gunnison felt a stinging shame at the realization that the author of the slander had somehow attained the right to wear the coveted “C” upon his breast.

“Fancy the colossal nerve of the brute,” growled Ward, “faking up a diary and expecting to deceive any one with it!” His hand touched the book in his pocket, but he did not draw it forth. “It's a forgery; it can't be anything else!”

But presently he recalled having seen Hugh several times writing a little secretively in a book much like the one he had snatched from Liddell. It seemed rather odd that the latter should have known of something which Ward himself had discovered by accident. This did not in the least disturb his faith in Cabell, but when he reached the house he was moved to slip up to his room without even pausing to inquire whether Hilliard, the popular alumnus, had arrived.

He told himself it was because he wanted to freshen up and remove all possible traces of his encounter in the gym; but when he was alone, with the door shut, he made no effort to wash, or change his things. He stood for a long time beside his desk, then slowly, with an odd movement of hesitation, drew the book from his pocket and held it in his hands.

In appearance it was like the one he had seen Cabell writing in. It was also identical with their chemical-lab notebooks. All at once, as he stared at the familiar checkered cover, Gunnison remembered his chum's curious insistence that he had brought his book to the laboratory that afternoon, in spite of his inability to find it with the others. Liddell had explained his possession of this book by saying that he had picked it up in the lab.

The strange coincidence sent an unpleasant shiver tingling on Ward's spine, and he dropped down rather heavily on the desk chair.

CHAPTER IX.

The Closer Bond.

FOR a long time Gunnison sat motionless, staring at the book before him. He longed and dreaded at one and the same time to open it. If this were really his chum's diary nothing could induce him to read a single line. But how was such a thing possible unless Liddell had brazenly faked the extract he had pretended to read?

At length, tormented by doubt and an intense desire to settle once and for all the fact that there had been a deliberate plot against Cabell's reputation, he put out one hand and touched the cover. He was as familiar with Hugh's writing as with his own. A brief glance at one of the pages would be enough to tell him what he wanted to know. For a minute longer he hesitated; then, with a determined movement, his fingers flicked back the sheets.

Suddenly his hand stopped; then it dropped limply to the desk. His eyes widened, his whole frame stiffened. Staring up at him out of that page, which could have been written by no one save Hugh Cabell, a single sentence seared itself upon his brain in letters that burned like vitriol:

How little Ward suspects that the grit he admires is loathsome sham; that I'm a moral as well as a physical coward—a creature beneath contempt, afraid to show his fear!

A gasp came from Gunnison's set lips; a rush of color turned his face a vivid crimson. For a second he sat stunned, motionless, his eyes full of unbelief. Then a quiver of pain flickered into them, and his lids drooped. When they lifted again his face had taken on a set, stony expression which told a little of what he was suffering.

Presently his glance strayed again to the book before him. He read a little more—a line, a phrase, a sentence. With unsteady fingers he turned the page. The misery in his face became deeper, but after a little the stony look softened into pity and infinite regret. Those bitter words of self-reproach, fairly pulsating with a sense of keenest despair and hopelessness, brought to him a vivid realization of what Hugh must have suffered, and stirred his sympathy to the depths.

When he raised his head from the book something had vanished from Ward Gunnison's face—something of faith, of admiration, of hero worship. But in its place had come another sturdier quality, which showed in the tightly pressed lips and hardened jaw, in the determined purpose gleaming in his blue eyes. He stood up and began pacing the room, his face thoughtful. In his mind was the vision of a college career shattered, of the man he had worshiped starting life under the burden of a shameful handicap that he might never overcome. He had a fear which amounted almost to conviction that Cabell would never return to finish his course. Though no longer possessed of the incriminating diary, Liddell was sure in time to spread about the truth. Many would deny it, to be sure; but if Hugh did not return to face his enemy and, by his actions, make the latter's slanders impossible of belief, there would always be doubts in some minds as to the cause of his inexplicable departure from Cornell.

The thought of all this was intolerable to Gunnison, for in the mental test through which he had just passed his friendship for his chum had been strengthened instead of weakened. Formerly he had looked up to Hugh almost as a person on a different plane, had fairly worshiped him because of that dashing bravery, apparently so different from his own self-confessed timidity. But with the shattering of the idol had come something more human and infinitely more binding. Instead of a superior being, he had found a character as full of frailties and human weaknesses as his own. The relation was no longer a one-sided affair; he could give as well as take. He could render aid where it was desperately needed, and that was what he meant to do.

Hugh must come back. How he comported himself after his return was something which need not be considered at present. Surely, now that he had a confidant, the need of which every page of that diary expressed so eloquently, he could manage to force himself to play his part for the few remaining days of the season. Together they ought to find some way of keeping that hateful fear at bay for those two games. Crystal clear, Gunnison saw his duty: To find his chum and actually to force him, if necessary, to follow the only possible course to preserve his standing with his fellows, and restore in some degree his shattered self-respect.

His mind made up, Gunnison was swift to act. In Hugh's desk he found and noted down the address of Mrs. Cabell's brother. Hastily changing his clothes, he packed a bag, and sat down to write a few lines to Colin Campbell, the chapter president, explaining vaguely that he was called away for a few days. He hated the thought of seeming to sneak off like this, but he dared not give the fellows a chance for the storm of questions which would pour upon him if he personally announced his departure.

Finishing the note, he switched off the light and softly opened the door. Dinner must just have been announced, for the sound of talk and laughter from the living room below was dying away as the fellows descended into the basement dining room.

Having waited a minute or two, Gunnison left the note on Campbell's desk, and went softly down the stairs. From the basement he heard a laugh which sounded like Hilliard's. He wished he might have seen old Bart, if only for a moment, but that was impossible. He let himself out into the street, and the door closed behind him.

CHAPTER X.

Into the Big Woods.

GONE to Maine!” Gunnison's jaw sagged, and he nearly dropped the telephone receiver. He was phoning from the South Station, in Boston, and Mrs. Cabell herself had answered the call. She had been very ill, she said, but had recovered as suddenly as she had been stricken. Her daughter, Beverley, had sent the alarming message to Hugh, and he had arrived before it could be corrected.

“Yes,” she continued, “just a brief shooting trip to Fish River Lake, near Ashland. He got in late last night, and took an early train this morning. He was tired out, and not at all well, and it seemed the best way of spending a short leave of absence from college. He'll be sorry to miss you.”

“Sorry!” muttered Ward, when he had mumbled his thanks and hung up. “What a thundering mess! Fish River Lake—hunting trip—whew!”

Five minutes later he was deep in conversation with the man behind the “Information” window. Within an hour he hunted up an acquaintance in an office on Boylston Street, persuaded him to cash a check, and reached the North Station in ample time to have a bite of lunch and catch the noon train for Bangor. The journey seemed interminable. It was after nine when he reached Bangor, and, of course, much too late to get anything north on the Aroostook. He took the first train next morning, and when he finally stepped out of the stuffy, uncomfortable day coach at Ashland he was stiff and sore in every limb.

He would have given a lot for a chance to rest his weary bones, but he could not spare even an hour. It was Wednesday. Hugh must be back at Ithaca by Saturday morning at the latest. No time was to be lost.

Inquiry at the general store revealed the fact that Fish River Lake was some nine miles distant as the crow flies, and considerably farther if one followed the tortuous roads made by lumbermen. The proprietor remembered Cabell's arrival late the night before. He and Joe Simmons, a guide, had started off at daybreak in the latter's canoe. They hadn't mentioned their exact destination, but perhaps Bill Welsh, who had driven in from Higgins' Camp Number Two for supplies, might know something about it.

Ward went out to where the teamster was loading up his wagon at the rear of the store. He found a hulking, hard-looking fellow with two weeks' growth of stubble disfiguring his countenance, and a sullen, grouchy manner. He knew nothing about Cabell and the guide, and his tone intimated that he cared less.

For a minute or two Gunnison was stumped. With no experience in woodcraft, he would be helpless so far as finding his way to the lake alone was concerned, and from the storekeeper he had learned that the few professional guides having their homes in Ashland were all out with parties. A certain Jim Allen might show up in a day or so, but there was no positive assurance of that; and, anyway. Ward hadn't even a few hours to spare.

He stood doubtfully in the doorway for a while, watching Welsh heave boxes and bundles into the wagon with vicious swings of his powerful arms, as if venting a chronic spite on these inanimate objects. He was not in the least a prepossessing sort of person. In fact, to Gunnison, unaccustomed to rough characters of any sort, he looked positively dangerous. But Ward was desperate, and at last, after a long period of hesitation, he asked whether it would be possible for him to get a lift as far as Higgins' camp. Fortunately he happened to add that he expected to pay for the accommodation. Welsh had already commenced a growling refusal, but at the mention of money he changed it into a grudging assent, announced that they would start in ten minutes, and continued his work.

Once committed, Ward was undecided whether to be glad or sorry. When finally he mounted the seat and the wagon creaked slowly past the last frame shack of the little settlement into the lonely wilderness pf scrub timber and thick undergrowth, his doubts on that score vanished swiftly. He was distinctly sorry. Moreover, he fervently wished himself back in the homely security of the cluttered store, for the unpleasant conviction suddenly came to him that the sulky giant at his side had been drinking. He tried to laugh down his fears, but failed dismally. The silence, the feeling of utter isolation, the sinister, taciturn fellow at his side who scarcely opened his lips except at intervals to drink from a flat bottle which he carried, all combined to wear upon nerves already jangling from the tense uncertainty of the mission. Swiftly Ward recalled the fact that not a single soul had the least idea of his whereabouts. This burly ruffian could knock him over the head, go through his clothes, and toss him aside in the underbrush with scarcely a chance of detection. The swift approach of early November twilight added to his fears.

When at last they reached the logging camp without a single one of his dire forebodings materializing, Gunnison's relief and thankfulness were as great as if the perils he had pictured were real instead of the product of imagination and inexperience.

Here at least he would be safe, he thought, as he dropped off the wagon in front of a commodious log house set down amid some smaller shanties beside the lake. He need remain only long enough to find out where Hugh was staying. It couldn't be far away, for one of the few grudging bits of information he had extracted from the taciturn Welsh was the scornful comment that “Fish River Lake ain't nothin' but a mis'able overgrown pond.”

After dumping his passenger—having first made sure of the dollar he demanded for the lift—the teamster drove off into the darkness, leaving Gunnison to shift for himself. Ward hesitated doubtfully for a moment at the entrance of the log house. The cheery gleam of light shining through the cracks and the occasional bursts of laughter from within were encouraging, so presently he pushed the door open and entered.

He saw a long, low room lined with wooden bunks and hazy with clouds of tobacco smoke. A great fire roared and crackled in a wide-throated chimney, and gathered about it in various attitudes of lounging abandon were fully twelve men. There was a sudden cessation of talk as the door opened; heads were turned in that direction. Gunnison stepped forward, blinking a little in the glare of the fire.

“I—I beg your pardon,” he faltered.

“Holy smoke!” exclaimed a huge, rawboned, iron-jawed man who rose with a spring amazingly catlike for one so sizable. “Here he is! Told yuh the little runt'd likely come nosin' in here.”

There was a general stir. Growling and muttering, the men got upon their feet, favoring the intruder with looks of distrust and hatred which filled him with a sense of alarm. His eyes took note of long-necked bottles and tiny dippers. Like the teamster, this crowd had been indulging in liquor.

The giant strode forward and grasped his arm. “That baby game won't go here,” he rasped. “Yuh put it over on Mose Walloughby's crew, and made 'em b'lieve yuh was a tender chicken. Yuh got your sneakin' evidence for the revenues. Tom McGuire's down the river waitin' trial now, but they've got your number from Seebois to th' Allegash.”

His iron fingers bit into Gunnison's arm. “Close the door tight, boys,” he directed. “We're goin' to make it so hot for this spy that he'll throw up his job the minute he can crawl out of the sticks and git to the first telephone office. He won't wait to report in person to his sooperior.”

CHAPTER XI.

When Fear Fled.

HUGH CABELL was not enjoying himself. Although fond of the woods and hunting, he found no pleasure in either now. Twice that afternoon he had fired at a deer, missing both times because his mind was elsewhere. The soft browns and yellows of the autumn woods, the dark, rich greens of fir and balsam which usually rejoiced his heart, had resolved themselves into a mere background for that vivid mental picture of Percy Field with twin lines of battling men. He saw his own team being driven back, back, by the irresistible rush of Dartmouth and the mighty Blount. Always he seemed to see the Cornell line break and melt at that very point where he should have been, but from which fear had driven him—a quitter, a coward! Perhaps he could have done no better than the man who took his place, but at least he would have fought with them, gone down with them to honorable defeat, preserving some shreds of decency and self-respect.

With such phantoms flitting continuously through his mind, it was small wonder that he missed the two bucks that presented such fair and tempting marks through the stripped trees. He was even indifferent to the guide's ill-suppressed surprise and disapproval. But he was loath to return to camp even when dusk began to fall, for the simple reason that he hoped by physically exhausting himself to gain a measure of real sleep that night.

Darkness found them miles from the rough shack owned by Simmons at the head of the lake, and the guide suggested that, on the way thither, they might as well stop at Higgins' camp for a bite to eat.

Cabell agreed. He had dropped in at such places more than once during former trips into this section of the woods, and, though they were rough and ready, he usually found the timber cutters decent enough at heart. Besides, at the present moment, he welcomed anything which would divert his mind and bring even a brief respite from the unpleasant visions which had troubled him all day. Before they reached the camp a cheery gleam of light shone through the trees to guide them. Presently they saw that it came from an open window in the long bunk house, from which sounds of uncommonly raucous laughter reached their ears.

“Boys seem to be enj'yin' themselves to-night,” commented Simmons in some surprise. “Wonder if Fred could of gone over to headquarters. He said last week he might have to.”

Hugh made no answer. It seemed a matter of small consequence whether the foreman happened to be around or not. He was looking for diversion, and the sounds coming through the open window seemed to promise that he would find it. Reaching the window, he paused to glance inside.

For a moment he saw only a smoke-filled room, the gleam of dancing flames in the big fireplace, and a group of lumbermen, most of them laughing loudly. A little farther off, indistinct in the haze, two figures were standing close together, and at first the watcher supposed them to be indulging in some rude dance or horseplay for the entertainment of the others. The comments from the audience quickly undeceived him.

“Give him another twist, Bud!” urged a grinning individual at one side of the fire. “He'll 'fess up in a minute.”

“Sure,” agreed another; “he'll squeal, the sneakin' spy!”

Cabell's teeth clicked together as he realized the meaning of what he saw. It was not the playful frolic he had supposed. The husky man who towered above the other's head was gripping one of the slender chap's wrists, and twisting his arm with cruel force. The latter's back was toward the window, but the unnatural position of his shoulders, the flung-back head, the strained appearance of his whole slight frame showed what he was enduring.

“By golly!” came in a surprised whisper from the guide. “The whole bunch is lit up. Somebody must 'a' smuggled in booze from over the line. It's dead sartain Fred's away, all right.”

Hugh moved uneasily, stirred by the conviction that this was no place for him. A crowd of carousing woodsmen who had reached the point of wantoningly torturing one of their own number might furnish mental diversion, but it was not the sort he craved. He drew a long breath and was about to turn away when, all at once, there came from within a gasp, a slight struggle, and the slim fellow was whirled around to face the window. At the same instant an errant puff of wind sent the veil of tobacco smoke eddying toward the roof, and Cabell found himself staring into the pain-lined face and tortured eyes of his chum, Ward Gunnison.

Incredulity turned Hugh to stone. He stared in absolute unbelief. It was impossible. Ward was far away in Ithaca. Some freakish twist of fancy was deceiving him.

“Come,” cried the big ruffian; “own up that you're a spotter before I twist your wing off. I know yuh, and lyin' won't do no good. It was you that got the evidence they nabbed Tom McGuire on. Own up!” He gave another wrench at Gunnison's wrist.

Ward cried out, and at the sound something seemed to snap in Cabell's brain. With a flying spring he went through the open window, landing on his feet like a cat. Another spring and he planted his fist fairly behind the ruffian's ear, knocking him sprawling. Gunnison also went down, but the grip on his wrist was broken, and he scrambled up, uttering a joyous cry at sight of his friend. Cabell, his nostrils dilated, on his face a fearful look of rage, gripped his chum and swung him round behind him.

“You miserable, white-livered louts!” he cried, hoarse with wrath, glaring at the astounded men. “You may think it is sport to see a big brute torturing a fellow half his size and weight——”

Gunnison shouted a warning; “Look out, Hugh! He's up! He's——”

The ruffian who had been knocked down was on his feet again. His face contorted with unspeakable rage, he uttered a roar, and charged.

Cabell side-stepped deftly, and smashed the man as he lunged past. Although fired himself by anger indescribable, Hugh's brain had never been clearer, his command of himself never more complete. Of fear he felt not the slightest qualm. The monster that had ridden him so long had been cast off in a twinkling on beholding his friend's plight in the hands of the brutal giant.

Recovering from the amazement caused by Cabell's astonishing entrance through the window, one of the crowd shouted:

“Another spy! Nail him, boys! Don't let——”

“Hands off!” roared the giant called Bud. “He's my meat. Keep back and give me room. Don't let t'other one get away.”

They obeyed. Bud Andrews, the greatest fighter in the Fish River country, was given all the room he could ask for in which to beat up the reckless young man who had assailed him in defense of a friend. Surely it would take him only a few seconds to do the job.

Cabell realized that those men believed that he would be scarcely more than a child in the hands of Andrews. He was aware that the seeming odds were at least ten to one against him. He knew that, beyond doubt, he would be mercilessly pummeled should the bully win in the fight from which there was no possible means of escape. Yet he was not afraid; far from it, he welcomed the battle with a fierce eagerness that was part and parcel of the tremendous rage that had taken possession of his whole being. With the flight of fear, confidence had returned; he believed in himself once more; as sure as he was living was he sure that he could whip this hulking brute of the backwoods.

Never before had any of the witnesses beheld such a fight. The stranger was swift as thought in all his movements—avoiding the rushes of Andrews, side-stepping, ducking furious wallops; parrying blows, any one of which would have knocked him down had it landed fair; puzzling the giant by feints and false movements, and now and then getting in with a smash when his antagonist left an opening.

Soon Andrews began to fume and snarl because of his inability to close with the slippery fellow who constantly avoided his charges, and smote him always when he sought to recover and turn for another rush. Then he tried to grapple, and Cabell was finally cornered. There was no escape for him now.

Like a tackier on the gridiron, Hugh plunged under Andrews' arms, caught him about the thighs, swept him off his feet, and pitched him upon his head and shoulders with a crash that shook the log structure. It was done with the same amazing suddenness that had characterized all of the college man's actions, and Cabell danced lightly away as the big man rolled over, sprawling, and scrambled up—danced away and came in like a flash of light, his arm shooting out like a piston rod, his fist, skinned and bleeding, sending the big man spinning and sliding against the legs of an amazed comrade.

“By mighty!” gurgled one of the gaping throng. “He—e's getting the best of Bud!”

“Yah!” snarled Andrews, rising again. “I'll pound the head off him! Gimme room!”

Battered and bleeding, he went after Cabell with greater fury than ever. It seemed that nothing could stop him, nothing could wear him down. Surely, in time, by sheer force of weight and brute energy, he would beat out his antagonist, overcome and crush him; and when the stranger was exhausted and helpless, when Andrews was at last master of the situation, there could be little question as to what would happen. More than one of the spectators had witnessed the finish of the great battle between the champion of the Fish River region and Hickory Jones, the Millinocket blacksmith, whose boast was that he had once whipped John L. Sullivan in a free-for-all fight; and they had not forgotten that Jones was carried unconscious to a hospital, from which, five weeks later, he emerged crippled for life. Infuriated as he now was, Andrews might not quit until he had killed the stranger who had interfered in behalf of the spotter.

A sudden shout went up. Andrews had landed with one of his fearful swinging blows. The stranger had succeeded in partially escaping the full force of it, but it sent him reeling, blood on his lips. Snarling exultantly, the giant rushed after to follow up with other sledge-hammer strokes which must quickly bring about the expected finish. The end of the uneven fight seemed near.

But just when the bully was closing in on The staggering college man the latter ducked under his arm, whirled, and nailed him again on the neck below the ear, the impact of his fist sounding like the crack of a pistol. Then it was Andrews who staggered, clutching at the loose shirt of a comrade to steady himself. And before he could recover Cabell was at him, striking again and again, every blow counting.

Restrained by two lumbermen, Gunnison had watched the battle, his heart in his mouth, his brain awhirl with fear and wonderment. Again and again he had vainly struggled to break away, seeking to go to Hugh's assistance. At times he raved and raged at the men who held him. When he saw the giant apparently about to end it, following the blow that had knocked Cabell reeling, he cried out, kicking and twisting. Exhausted, he relaxed at last, and was unspeakably relieved and amazed to behold Hugh, still on his feet, hammering the giant with all the skill and vigor of a professional boxer trained to the minute.

The wonderment of the other witnesses was no less great. It was beyond their comprehension that the youthful stranger should not only be still on his feet and fighting, but apparently getting the best of his huge antagonist, who at last showed symptoms of faltering, and whose rushes were becoming spasmodic and somewhat aimless.

The truth was that blows from Cabell's barked and battered knuckles had half closed both of Andrews' eyes, partially blinding the ruffian. Seeing this, Hugh took more chances in close fighting, having a care, however, to dodge away whenever the big man sought to grapple with him. With uppercuts, swinging wallops, and straight-from-the-shoulder drives, he hammered at the bully, who began to betray symptoms of grogginess. And always he was watching for the chance to land fairly, with all the strength at his command, the blow on which he relied to end the encounter.

That chance came at last. A punch in the midriff caused Andrews to drop his hamlike hands for an instant. Cabell improved the opportunity. His movements seemed deliberate with the cold calculation of one whose brain was keen and active, yet they were really made without loss of a fraction of time. With his feet planted firmly, he flung every ounce of his strength and weight into the smash that reached the point of Andrews' jaw.

The man went down, his head cracking on the stones of the fireplace hearth, and there he lay like one smitten by a thunderbolt.

The sudden silence of the room was broken at last by many deep-drawn breaths. One of the witnesses muttered:

“Well, I'll be blowed! Bud's knocked stiff!”

Another cried:

“Don't let the spotters get away! We've got to——”

Simmons, the guide, had entered the room by the door, and watched the astounding fight through to the more astounding finish. Now he spoke up:

“What's the matter with you fellers? He's no spotter. He's a college feller come in here for a little sport. And, believe me, they overlooked the genuine white hope when they passed him up!”

“But t'other one, he's the sneak that got Tom McGuire for smuggling booze over the line.”

“G'wan, you bat-eyed gump!” retorted Simmons scornfully. “I see that spotter myself at close range, and he had curly black hair and gold-filled teeth. This ain't' the same feller at all.”

Breathing somewhat heavily, Cabell rested a bruised hand on Gunnison's shoulder. “This is my chum and roommate at college,” he announced.

“Then I vouch for 'em both,” said Simmons; “I guarantee they're all right.”

Another brief silence followed. Presently one of the woodsmen, who seemed to have some authority, spoke up:

“Then we all made a mistake; but Bud, I guess he made the biggest one. He seems to be comin 'round,” he added, as the fallen champion groaned and moved slightly. “It's more'n likely he'll feel ruther disagreeable when he rekivers. We don't want to be unhospitable, but it might not be real pleasant for the two young gents around here when he comes to and finds out what's happened to him.”

“Come, Ward,” said Cabell, slipping his arm across Gunnison's shoulders. “Let's get out.”

CHAPTER XI.

The Final Test.

YOU did all that after you'd read the diary?” muttered Cabell, his eyes fixed on the swirling sweep made by his paddle in the water.

“Of course,” returned Gunnison simply.

“Why?”

Ward flushed a bit. “I was afraid you'd never come back,” he explained. “I couldn't let you throw yourself away like that if there was any possible way of preventing it. You see, Hugh”—a touch of bitterness crept into his voice—“I thought that all you wrote down about being afraid was true.”

Cabell's eyes swept over the shadowy, rippling surface of the winding stream, past the motionless gray outline of the shadowy frees along the bank, past the gaunt, misty gray peak towering above them, and finally came to rest for an instant on the velvet-gray eastern sky just tinged with the rose hue of dawn. When his gaze returned to the face of his loyal chum there was in his eyes an expression which Ward had never seen there before, and which thrilled him inexplicably.

“It was true, old man, every word of it,” Cabell said quietly.

“How could it be?” protested Gunnison incredulously. “How could you be afraid, and—and whip that bully as you did last night?”

Cabell shook his head. “I don't know,” he answered, “but I was. Last night was different.” He flushed a little. He was not an adept at expressing himself. “Something happened to me,” he went on lamely; “I don't know just what. But I do know this, Pink: No fellow ever had a truer friend than you. If it hadn't been for you I'd be skulking in the woods this minute instead of going back where I belong.”

In the bow Joe Simmons was barely conscious of the murmur of voices behind him. He had other things to think about. He could scarcely wait to get back to Ashland to narrate the story of the most amazing fight he had ever seen. He wished he had with him another witness to the astonishing encounter back there in the bunk house. That was the one big drawback in his anticipatory pleasure. When he told of Bud Andrews' being whipped to a standstill, knocked stiff and “put out” by this youngster from college, few would believe him—and he could not blame them.

Personally Hugh was glad that their appearance at the little settlement was so well timed as to leave them only a few minus before the arrival of the first train south. He had no desire to discuss the fracas in which he had participated. He was not proud of the manner in which he had lapsed for a space into a creature controlled absolutely by a merciless and almost insane desire to crush and destroy another human being; yet, down in his heart, mingling with the wonder of it all, lurked a touch of grim pleasure at the thought that for the first time in his life rage had conquered fear.

During the tedious railroad journey the two friends had ample time to work out the details and explanations which would be within the limits of the truth, but it happened that they were under no necessity of explaining at all. The members of the varsity—in fact, the entire student body—were so rejoiced at the reappearance of the star tackle that they asked few questions, taking everything for granted. Even the vague “accident” by which Cabell accounted for his cuts and bruises caused only a momentary speculation.

Gunnison had a harder time satisfying the fellows in the fraternity house about his inexplicable absence, but he, too, was aided by the stir and bustle which pervaded the entire campus at the near approach of the most important game of the season.

The two returned early Saturday morning, and Gunnison did not lay eyes on his roommate again until he found him in the clubhouse on Percy Field half an hour before the opening of the game. Ward was by far he more nervous of the two. He was a little reassured by Cabell's composed manner; but then the tackle had never outwardly shown anything else, even in the old days which now, oddly enough, seemed so far away.

They chatted casually for a few minutes, during which time Gunnison's roving glance happened to rest on Chet Liddell's puzzled, disappointed face, and he derived no little pleasure from the sight. Then, as the order came for the squad to take the field, he could repress his curiosity no longer.

“Say, Hugh,” he whispered as they reached the open together, “do you feel the least bit—er—nervous?”

“A little,” Cabell acknowledged. Then he smiled grimly. “If I begin to get cold feet I'll think of our experience with Bud the other night. It ought to act as a tonic.”

He was much more nervous than he admitted. It was not the old nerve-racking, shivering fear which the very thought of the game had roused in him; that seemed to have vanished for good and all. But he could not look forward with even an assumption of cool indifference to the approaching struggle. The very sight of Blount, burly and confident, sent a tremor through him.

In the first rush he was carried off his feet and flung violently to the ground by Blount. As the players piled up on his prostrate body, with a little of the old panic he thrust them off with a mighty heave, and got on his feet. Dartmouth had gained five yards. When Hugh realized that the play had been made possible by Blount's beating down his own defense, a touch of angry color flecked his face. That color deepened when he met the giant's gaze a moment later, and perceived his look of challenge and disdain.

In the ensuing scrimmage, in his eagerness to stop the advance, Cabell dived too soon, and it seemed as if the entire opposing team tramped over his spine. He was on his feet swiftly, consuming anger in his heart. Blount was trying to put him out! The anger grew. When the Dartmouth quarter called the signal, Hugh gathered himself, and, an instant later, plunged forward at precisely the right moment, arms sweeping wide to encircle as many legs as they could compass. The forward rush of the enemy stopped with a jerk, the mass of players swayed like a pyramid balancing on its apex, then collapsed, burying the Cornell tackle beneath the

The heaving struggle with which Hugh forced his way through the mass was different from the panicky effort to escape that had moved him before. There was a ferocity in the strength with which he flung aside impeding players which could not possibly have its origin in fear. His jaw was hard and set; his eyes flashed. In the vibrant, ringing voice with which he urged his teammates to get busy there was a new note which sent queer shivers down the spines of some and etched lines of stubborn determination on the face of every Cornell player.

Again and again the battling lines came together fiercely. With every scrimmage Cabell became stronger and more merciless. As the ball changed sides, in attack or defense alike, the Cornell tackle was mainly intent on opposing and thwarting the man who had roused his anger. The game seemed presently to develop into a battle royal between the two.

Once Harland caught Cabell by the arm. “Careful, Hugh,” he warned; “he's trying to do you up. Don't take such chances! We can't spare you.”

“Don't worry, Les,” was the instant assurance. “You won't have to.”

His blood was up. Again white rage had conquered fear. No man living could put him out! Let him who tried it beware! Again and again he met, without a qualm, the man he had once thought invincible, and downed him. Again and again he led the assault or bolstered the defense, always in the van, often the first to go down, nearly always the first to gain his feet for another plunge. Raging, tireless, eyes gleaming with a fierce joy, voice raised constantly in pleading or command, he was a sight to inspire his comrades with unlimited confidence and to fill the enemy with consternation. As in that extraordinary combat far away in the big North Woods, the anger which dominated and transformed Cabell did not make him lose his head. His brain had never been cooler; he never, for an instant lost sight of the real object before him; not an opening escaped him. And, toward the end of the second quarter, it was due mainly to his quickness of thought and execution that the first down was made.

From that moment the spirit of the once invincible Blount was broken. He was cowed and overcome by this raging demon where he had expected to find a spineless bluffer. With his fall it seemed as if the Dartmouth team practically gave up hope. Twice the triumphant Crimson and White forced the ball over their opponent's goal line. When it was all over a zero represented Dartmouth's scoring.

Delirious with joy, the spectators overflowed the field, caught Cabell before he could escape, carried him round and round the gridiron in triumph, as they had done many times before. But this time the happy tackle made no protest, no effort to squirm from their grasp. His cheeks were flushed, but not with an overpowering shame and sense of unworthiness. His lids did not droop as he met the eager, sparkling eyes of a girl who bent over the railing of the grand stand. Instead, he laughed aloud, and waved a bruised and grimy hand. He could enjoy it all because it was his by right. He had conquered fear at last, and come through the test of the gridiron triumphant.