CHAPTER XVII

THE SOPHOMORES LOSE

There are several occasions when a young man can find no words in which to express himself. One is when he meets a pretty girl for the first time, and another is when his best chum has a great sorrow. There are other occasions, but these are the chief ones. Thus it was with Tom and Sid. For a few seconds after Phil's announcement they sat staring at the floor. Their eyes took in the pattern of the faded rug, though little of the original figure was to be seen because of the many spots. Then Tom looked about the apartment, viewing the photographs of the two pretty girls, the sporting implements massed in a corner, the table, with its artistic confusion of books and papers. From these his gaze traveled back to Phil.

As for Sid, he breathed heavily. If he had been a girl I would have said that he sighed. Then, being a youth who did not shirk any duty, no matter how hard, Sid asked:

"Is--is she any worse, Phil? Have you had bad news? Can't we--can't you go down where she is?"

Phil shook his head.

"There's no specially bad news," he said, "but it's this way: She has a malady which, sooner or later, unless it is conquered, will--will take her away from me--and sis. Dad thinks an operation is the only hope, but they keep putting it off from time to time, on a slim chance that she may recover without it. For the operation is a desperate expedient at best. And that's why I'm not myself. That's why I can't go into the games with all my might. I expect any moment to be summoned to the sidelines to get a telegram saying--saying----"

He choked up, and could not finish.

"Is it--is it as bad as that?" asked Tom huskily, and he put his arm over Phil's shoulder, as his chum sat in the old easy chair.

"It's pretty bad," said Phil softly. Then, with a sudden change of manner, he exclaimed: "But say, I didn't mean to tell you fellows that. I don't believe in relating my troubles to every one," and he smiled, though it was not like his usual cheery face that looked at his two chums.

"Oh, come now!" cried Sid. "As if we didn't want to hear! And as if you shouldn't tell us your troubles! Why, I expect to tell you fellows mine, and I want to hear yours in return, eh, Tom."

"Of course," said the pitcher heartily.

"Well, that's mighty white of you chaps," went on Phil, swallowing a lump in his throat. "But I'm not going to bother you any more, just now. Only that's the reason I'm--well, that I can't play as I want to play. But I'm going to try to forget it. I'm going into the next game, and help rip their line to pieces. I'm going to pilot our fellows to a big score or dislocate my other shoulder."

"Good!" cried Sid. "Now let's get to bed. It's almost morning."

The little talk among the three chums was productive of good. There was a closer bond of union among them than there had ever been before. They felt more like brothers, and Tom and Sid watched Phil for the next few days as if he was a little chap, over whom they had been given charge.

"Oh, say!" the quarter-back exclaimed at length one afternoon, when they had followed him to football practice, and walked home with him. "I'm not so bad as all that, you know."

"Did you hear any news to-day?" asked Tom, ignoring the mild rebuke.

"Yes. Got a telegram from dad. Things look a little brighter, and yet----" He paused. "Well," he continued, "I don't want to think too much about it. We play Haddonfield to-morrow. I want to wipe up the gridiron with them."

Which Phil and his chums pretty nearly did. Haddonfield Preparatory School had the best eleven in years, but, even with a number of scrub players on Randall, the score was forty-six to nothing. There was a different air about the college team as the lads went singing from the field that afternoon. There was confidence in their eyes.

It was a beautiful afternoon in October. Lectures were over and a throng of students had strolled over the campus and down to the banks of Sunny River. The stream flowed lazily along toward Lake Tonoka, winding in and out, as though it had all the time it desired in which to make the journey, and meant to take the full allowance. There was nothing rapid or fussy about Sunny River. It was not one of those hurrying, bubbling, frothy streams that make a great ado about going somewhere, and never arrive. There was something soothing in walking along the banks that bracing, fall day. There was just enough snap in the air to prevent one from feeling enervated, yet there was hardly a hint of winter.

"Doesn't it make you feel as if you could stretch out on your back and look up into the sky?" asked Phil of Tom as the three chums walked along. Tom and the quarter-back had been to football practice, and still had their togs on.

"Now hold on!" exclaimed Sid, before Tom could answer. "Is this going to lead anywhere?"

"What do you mean?" asked Phil.

"I mean that poetical start on a talk-fest. Are you going to ring in beautiful scenery, calm, peaceful atmosphere, a sense of loneliness, and then switch off on to girls? Is that what you're driving at? Because if it is I want to know, and I'm going back and read some psychology."

"You're up the wrong tree," declared Tom. "I don't know what Phil means, but my answer to his question would be that to stretch out on the ground for any length of time at this season would mean stiff muscles, not to mention rheumatism."

"You fellows have no poetry in your nature," complained Phil. "Just look there, where the river curves, how the trees lean over to be kissed by the limpid water. Can't you fancy some one floating, floating down it in a boat, with heart attuned----"

"It's too late for boating!" exclaimed a voice behind the trio. "My uncle says----"

Phil turned quickly and tried to grab Ford Fenton. The youth with the uncle jumped back.

"Why--what--what's the matter?" stammered Fenton.

"Matter!" cried Phil. "Why, you little shrimp, I've a good notion to chuck you into the river!"

"Yes, the river--the beautiful, meandering, poetical river," added Tom. "Quit it, Phil; you're getting on my nerves. I'm glad Fenton interrupted you with a recollection of his uncle. What were you going to say about your respected relative?" he asked.

But Fenton was going to take no chances with Phil, and, turning about, he retraced his steps.

"What were you saying, Phil?" inquired Sid politely, if sarcastically.

"None of your business," replied the quarter-back a little stiffly. "I'm going to write a poem about it," he added more genially.

"And send it to some girl, I suppose," went on Sid. "Oh, you make me sick!"

What further ramification the conversation might have taken is problematical, but it was interrupted just then by the arrival of Ed Kerr, who seemed in much of a hurry.

"I've been looking all over for you fellows," he panted.

"Why hastenest thou thus so hastily?" asked Tom. "Is the college on fire? Has Pitchfork been taken with a fit, or has Moses sent to say we need study no more?"

"Quit your gassin'!" ordered Ed. "Say, we're going to have the walk rush to-night. The freshies have just had a meeting and decided on it. Tried to pull it off quietly, but Snail Looper heard, and kindly tipped us off. Dutch Housenlager is getting the soph crowd together. You fellows want to be in it, don't you?"

"Of course," answered Tom. "We have not forgotten that we were once freshmen, and that we had many clashes with the second-years. Now we will play the latter rôle. Lead on, Macduff, and he be hanged who first cries: 'Hold! Enough!' We'll make the freshies wish they had never seen Randall College."

"Maybe--maybe not," spoke Phil. "They're a husky lot--the first-year lads. But we can never let them have the privilege of the walk without a fight."

The "walk rush," as it was termed, was one of those matters about which college tradition had centered. It was a contest between the freshman and sophomore classes, that took place every fall, usually early in October. It got its name from the walk which circled Booker Memorial Chapel. This chapel was the gift of a mother whose son had died while attending Randall, and the beautiful stained glass windows in it were well worth looking at--in fact, many an artist came to Randall expressly for that purpose.

Around the chapel was a broad walk, shaded with stately oaks, and the path was the frequenting place of the college lads. From time immemorial the walk had been barred to freshmen unless, in the annual rush, they succeeded in defeating the sophomores, and, as this seldom occurred, few freshmen used the walk, save on Sundays, when all hostilities were suspended, in honor of the day. The rush always took place on a small knoll, or hill, back of the gymnasium, and it was the object of the freshmen to take possession of this point of vantage, and maintain it for half an hour against the rush of the sophomores. If they succeeded they were entitled to use the chapel walk. If they did not, they were reviled, and any freshman caught on the forbidden ground was liable to summary punishment.

Dark figures stole silently here and there. Commands and instructions were whispered hoarsely. There was an air of mystery about, for it was the night of the walk rush, and freshmen and sophomores were each determined to win.

Garvey Gerhart, by virtue of the "boosting" which Langridge had given him, had secured command of the first-year forces. As soon as it was dark he had assembled them on "gym hill," as the knoll was called. There was a large crowd of freshmen, almost too large, it seemed, for the sophomores were outnumbered two to one. But Tom, Sid, Phil, Dutch Housenlager, Ed Kerr and others of the second-year class were strong in the belief of their power to oust their rivals from the hilltop. They had a moral force back of them--the conscious superiority of being "veterans," which counted for much.

"We're going to have our work cut out for us," commented Tom, as, with his chums advancing slowly to the fray, he surveyed the throng of freshmen. "My, but there's a bunch of 'em! And we've got to clean every mother's son of them off the hill."

"We'll do it!" cried Phil gaily. "It will be good training for us."

"Of course!" exclaimed Dutch, as he put out his foot slyly to trip Sid. Tom saw the act, he executed a quick movement that sent Housenlager sprawling on the ground.

"That's the time you got some of your own medicine!" exclaimed Phil with a laugh, as Dutch, muttering dire vengeance, picked himself up.

The preliminaries for the rush were soon arranged, timekeepers and umpires selected, and, with the bright moon shining down on the scene, the battle began. It was wild, rough and seemingly without order, yet there was a plan about it. The freshmen were massed together on top, and about the center bunch were circles of their fellows who were to thrust back the rushing sophomores. Not until the last freshman had been swept from the hill could the second-year youths claim victory.

"All ready!" yelled Ed Kerr, and at the freshmen went their rivals.

There was the thud of body striking body. Breaths came quick and fast. There were smothered exclamations, the sound of blows good-naturedly taken and given. There were cries, shouts, commands, entreaties. There was a swaying of the mass, this way and that. A knot of lads would go down, with a struggling pile on top of them, and the conglomeration would writhe about until it disentangled.

Tom, Phil and Sid (whose hand was now almost entirely better) tore their way toward the center. Time and again they were hurled back, only to renew the rush.

"Clean 'em off!" was the rallying cry of the sophomores.

"Fight 'em back!" was the retort of the freshmen.

At it they went, fiercely and earnestly. The entire mass appeared to be revolving about the hill now, with the little group of freshmen on the top as a pivot.

Gradually Tom, Phil and their particular chums worked their way up to the crest. Then they found that the freshmen had adopted strange tactics. Under the advice of Gerhart they stretched out prone, and, with arms and legs twined together, made a regular layer of bodies, covering the summit. It was almost impossible to separate the lads one from the other, in order to hurl them out of the way. They were literally "sticking together."

"Tear 'em apart!" pleaded Tom.

"Rip 'em up!" shouted Phil.

"Hold tight!" sung out Gerhart.

And hang tightly they did. Tom succeeded in breaking the hold of one lad, and Phil that of another. But, in turn, the two big sophomores were borne down and overwhelmed by the weight of freshmen on their backs.

The referee blew a warning whistle. But two minutes of time were left. The sophomores redoubled their efforts, but the ruse of the freshmen was a good one. It was like trying to tear apart a living doormat.

The sophomores could not do it. Though they labored like Trojans, it was not to be. Once more the whistle blew, indicating that the rush was ended.

The sophomores had lost, and for the remainder of the term the freshmen could strut proudly about the walk of Booker Memorial Chapel.