CHAPTER XXII
Forging Ahead
The air resounded with cheers from the frantic Lenox rooters as they poured down over the field, hoisted Garry on their shoulders, despite his laughing protests, and carried him to the clubhouse. Their joy was all the greater because their case had looked so hopeless that they had resigned themselves to defeat.
"A narrow squeak," commented Garry happily, as he was getting into his street clothes.
"But you made it!" exulted Nick. "And Rooster here and Bill covered themselves with glory. Old Hill Street was in it to-day with both feet."
It was a triumphal return that the Lenox boys made to their home town, and their delight in the victory was increased when they learned that Wimbledon had been defeated on the same day by Pawling, while Greenfield, their most feared opponent, had had to lower its colors to Thomaston. The first especially was balm to their spirits, as it seemed a sort of vicarious revenge for the defeat that Wimbledon had handed to Lenox.
On the following Monday their high spirits took a sudden drop when they learned that Mr. Garwin had suddenly been summoned out of town. There was serious illness in his family, and it was impossible to predict when he would be back.
Gloom settled over the teams like a pall. But though his heart, equally with others, was filled with consternation, Garry Grayson was the first to see that the cloud had a silver lining.
"Mr. Garwin was a crackajack coach," he said to his chums, as they were excitedly discussing the matter. "No mistake about that. But what's the matter with Mr. Phillips! They don't come any better than he is."
"He's there with the goods, all right," agreed Nick.
"But perhaps he won't be willing," came from Ted.
"Trust him to do anything he can for the school," said Garry confidently. "And he's a fiend for football. He doesn't think it's a brutal game unfit for gentlemen."
There was a general laugh at this reminder of the unlamented Trompet Shrugg.
"Of course we're only freshmen and we can't butt in," added Garry. "Perhaps Mr. Garwin has already made arrangements for some one to take his place. If he hasn't it's up to Ralph Wynn to take the first step."
"Who's taking my name in vain!" said a jocular voice behind them, and they looked up to see Ralph himself.
"I'm the guilty wretch," answered Garry, smiling. "We were wondering who was going to coach the team now that Mr. Garwin has gone."
"Mr. Garwin arranged for that before he left," replied Ralph. "He pressed an old friend of yours into the service."
"You don't mean Mr. Phillips?" cried Garry eagerly.
"No one else," answered Ralph, with a smile.
Mr. Phillips took up the reins that same afternoon, when he gathered the first and second teams together in the gymnasium. He gave them a little talk full of hard sense and inspiration, paying a graceful tribute to Mr. Garwin, whose shoes he said modestly he could not hope to fill. It was a genial talk, but firm, and his hearers readily guessed that there was an iron hand in the velvet glove. No one could shirk and get away with it while he was at the helm.
That the boys were going to support the new coach royally was evident from the very start. They were full of pep and ginger in practice. The two league games they had already played had gotten them into their stride. Now many weaknesses were eliminated, many new plays perfected. So when the day came for their match with Pawling they were at the top of their form.
From the first it was a battle of rush lines, and the aerial attack seldom figured. Lenox proved to have the heavier, the more aggressive, and the best-trained line. Pawling was very generally outplayed and outrushed. Time and again the Lenox forwards would break through on plays and repeatedly spoiled the Pawling cut-in dashes of its fast backs whose end sweeps were blocked because of the Lenox drive into the interference.
Lenox gained the lead in the first quarter, when after about five minutes of play, it staged a steady march down the field for a touchdown, aided by two beautiful end runs by Dittler. Knapp kicked the goal, and the home boys had got off to a flying start.
That was all the scoring done in that period, but shortly after the beginning of the second the visitors threw a scare into the home team by advancing the ball as far as the Lenox eighteen-yard line. There Lenox got possession of it, and although Knapp's kick was blocked the visitors could not rush it over the line. A little later a fine run back by Wynn put the ball on the Pawling fifteen-yard line, where the visitors put up a stubborn defense and were finally saved when a forward pass was incompleted in the zone.
It was not until the third that Pawling scored. A Lenox pass was intercepted, and the Pawling fullback drove ahead to the Lenox twenty-yard line. Then Abbott, the visitors' quarterback, tossed a forward pass over to the left and Wilson, sweeping in on the ball just beyond the scrimmage, carried it over the line for a touchdown, tying the score, and with the tally still unchanged the period ended.
Knapp was limping when he came in for the minute's rest between periods, and it developed that he had strained a tendon in the last mix-up.
Mr. Phillips's eye swept the line of substitutes on the bench and he beckoned to Garry.
"You take Knapp's place," he directed. "Remember that I'm depending on you to break that tie."
"I'll do my best," promised Garry, as he hurried out with the rest of the team.
Though the boy threw himself heart and soul into the struggle, no special opportunity came to him until ten minutes of the period had passed. Then Wynn threw a wide diagonal forward pass from his own nineteen-yard line and well beyond scrimmage. The ball went off into the open where Garry was uncovered and in the midst of several of his own teammates. Garry received the ball on his own forty-one yard line and streaked down the field on a gallop for a sixty-yard run, outstripping Abbott by a hairbreadth and plunged over the line for a touchdown. Wynn missed kicking the goal. But now the score was 13 to 7 and only three minutes left for play.
The Pawling boys were determined to die, if die they must, in the last ditch. After several line plunges had failed to gain distance Wilson made a gallant run of twenty-two yards where he was downed by Dittler. Before the ball could be put in play the whistle sounded, and a second victory was chalked up for Lenox.
The fans went wild, and Garry had to make a run for the shelter of the gymnasium to escape the mauling and pounding of the enthusiasts.
"Johnny-on-the-spot as usual!" exulted Ted.
"A bit of luck," said Garry modestly. "Most of the Pawlings were on the other side, and I had almost a clear field."
"They simply can't keep you off the regular team, if you keep on playing that way," declared Rooster.
"Oh, yes, they can for this first year, I'm afraid," answered Garry. "That freshman tradition is mighty strong at Lenox. We're lowly scrubs to be used in a pinch, but not good enough for the first string. Gee, but I'd be glad of a chance to play in a full game from start to finish!"
"I'm afraid our chances are worse than ever now," put in Nick Danter thoughtfully. "You see, Mr. Phillips may be especially leary in using any of us on the regulars, because, since we were members of the old Hill Street team, it might be thought a bit of favoritism."
"That is, you think Mr. Phillips will stand up so straight that he'll fall over backwards," said Garry. "Well, I don't. I think he'll do just what he thinks is best for the team, no matter what any one says. That's the kind of man he is."
A few days later, as Bill and Garry were going along a rather secluded street in the outskirts of the town, they saw, a little way ahead of them, Sandy Podder and Lent Stewart, together with a crony of theirs of the same stripe, Garry's old enemy, Chat Johns. Sandy turned at the sound of footsteps, saw Garry and Bill, and then held a low but animated discussion with his companions.
"Let's get ahead of them," suggested Garry. "The very sight of them makes me sick."
"Same here," agreed Bill, and the two boys quickened their steps.
As they passed the three cronies, Sandy remarked to Lent:
"Aren't you glad you're not a thief, Lent?"
"I sure am," was the reply. "I've no ambition to get behind the bars."
"I'd hate even to have a thief in the family," put in Chat, with an evil grin.
The slur was so evidently directed at Frank Sherwood and was so wanton and deliberate that Garry's blood boiled. Bill turned around like a flash and approached the group, his eyes blazing.
"You're a bunch of curs," he said hotly.
"And that goes double," chimed in Garry, at a white heat.
An ugly look came into the faces of the young rascals. They were not only three to two, but, with the exception of Chat, were older and heavier than either Bill or Garry.
"I'll make you eat those words, Garry Grayson," threatened Sandy Podder.
For answer Garry's fist shot out and caught Sandy full in the jaw.