CHAPTER XXIV

DAN WONDERS

By ten o’clock the news was all over school. Loring and Dyer were on probation!

Consternation reigned. Without Loring at quarter against Broadwood the game was already as good as lost! Dyer would be missed, too, for he was first substitute at right half, but his loss was nothing to that of Alf Loring. Consternation had given place to indignation by dinner time, and commons hummed and buzzed like a mammoth bee-hive.

“I don’t believe Loring ever did it!” That was the general sentiment. Loring himself had denied it up and down, and so had Dyer. Each declared to Mr. Collins that he had never set eyes on the paint can until he had seen it in Dr. Hewitt’s hand. Unfortunately, however, neither was able to prove his innocence. No one could say for certain that they had been in their room from ten o’clock until morning, and it would have been a simple matter for them to have walked boldly out of the front door, daubed on the letters and walked boldly in again. Mr. Austin, whose room on the first floor in the second well was near the entrance, was well known to be a heavy sleeper, and it is likely that a herd of elephants could have entered and departed without disturbing his slumbers. Neither Dyer nor Loring could prove an alibi even for the hours between daylight and ten o’clock, for, as it happened, they had visited various rooms in different dormitories during the evening and were very uncertain as to when they had left one fellow’s room or reached another’s. And so, much as Mr. Collins disliked doing it, the penalty of probation was inflicted. Probation at Yardley was no joke. It meant that a fellow must remain on school grounds, stay in his room from after supper until time for Chapel the next morning, must have all lessons perfect and, worse yet, must abstain from all sports.

“You declare that you know nothing about this affair,” said Mr. Collins, “and I am inclined to believe you. Your records are of the best, and the trick was such a silly, unnecessary thing that I can’t imagine you doing it. But the Doctor is very much put out and there is only one duty before me, and that is to put you both on probation. I am sorry, for in your case the punishment is a very heavy one, since it will disbar you from further football; unless--” Mr. Collins paused and looked intently at Loring--“unless you can prove your innocence by discovering the guilty ones. Somebody must have done it; you say you did not; therefore, it is possible that between you you may be able to discover the person or persons who are guilty. I will do all that I can to clear the matter up, fellows.”

“Thank you, sir,” muttered Loring.

“Now, tell me, can you think of anyone who could have done it?” Both shook their heads.

“You say you returned to your room shortly before ten. Therefore if someone else placed that can of paint under your bed, Loring, they must have done it before ten o’clock.”

“Yes, sir, unless they sneaked into the room after we were asleep.”

“Hm; not likely,” pondered Mr. Collins. “Still, possible, since your door was unlocked. Have either of you purchased any paint lately?”

“No, sir.”

“I’ll see if I can find where it came from. Perhaps the man who sold it will recall the purchaser. I’ll do what I can, fellows. Meanwhile you had better see if you can’t find out something yourselves.”

Payson learned of the affair at noon and went at once to see the Doctor and Mr. Collins. He pleaded and argued, declared that to suspect Loring was utter nonsense and that under the circumstances to deprive him of playing in the Broadwood game was utterly unjust. But the Doctor was firm and Mr. Collins could only shrug his shoulders and protest his helplessness. Payson became bitter and threatened to throw up his work there and then. Mr. Collins reminded him that he couldn’t do that, since he was under contract, and Payson went to some trouble to explain just how little he cared about that contract. In fact he quite lost his temper, and as there was a good deal of it to lose, Mr. Collins spent an unpleasant half-hour. But in the end Payson had to retire defeated, having said a good many things he was afterward sorry for.

At seven o’clock there was an indignation meeting in the Assembly Hall which was attended by the whole school. Speeches were made and all sorts of resolutions offered. In the end it was decided to draw up an appeal to the Faculty. The drawback was that the Faculty did not hold its next meeting until Thursday evening and that meanwhile the Principal’s word was law. The meeting broke up with cheers for Loring and Dyer, which were called for, and groans for Doctor Hewitt, which were spontaneous. They heard the news at Broadwood the next day and Colton got a telephone message from the Broadwood captain in which the latter politely expressed his regrets. Colton thanked him and courteously declared that Yardley expected to win just the same. Then he hung up the receiver with a _bang_ and strode off muttering unkind things about Broadwood, for no matter how many regrets they expressed Colton knew well enough that they were secretly mighty glad to have Loring off the Yardley team.

Those were hard times for Colton and for Payson. Discouragement threatened to disrupt the season’s work. Everyone was convinced that without Loring at quarter-back to lead the team, defeat was certain. Colton worked like a Trojan, trying to act as though the mishap was a matter of small moment and striving to bring back confidence to his team-mates. Payson worked hard, too, but he was grim and silent; he couldn’t pretend, or didn’t want to. King’s nose was put against the grindstone with a vengeance. He was drilled in signals, drilled in offense, drilled in defense and lectured between-whiles on generalship.

By Wednesday the first despair had worn off and the team was buckling down to work again. Three new plays were learned, among them Dan’s double forward pass. The latter went beautifully against the second and there seemed no reason why it should not work as well against Broadwood. Kapenhysen spent hours practicing goals from placement, the ends were drilled in catching passes and that last week was the busiest of the whole season. Luckily the weather had relented and day after day of ideal football conditions followed each other. A certain degree of cheerfulness returned to the team and its supporters. Without Loring it was idle to look for victory, but they could put up a good game, and if they succeeded in holding Broadwood down to a single score it would be a triumph.

Meanwhile Mr. Collins, assisted enthusiastically by Stevie, ran down all clues without results. Several of the hardware stores kept the brand of paint which had been used to decorate the front of Dudley and almost all of them had sold cans of blue pigment during the last fortnight. But no one could recall having sold to a purchaser who might have been a Yardley student. That appeared to exhaust the clues.

“There’s one thing I regret,” said Mr. Collins. “And that is that we allowed the finger prints on the door to be washed off. We might have been able to discover something through them.”

“Nonsense,” said Mr. Austin, “you’d have had to have dipped the fingers of half the school in blue paint, and even then you couldn’t have told for certain.”

“But we might have determined that neither Loring nor Dyer were the ones.”

“We know that already, don’t we?” demanded Mr. Austin, a trifle impatiently. Mr. Collins nodded.

“Yes, I guess we do,” he answered. “I wish we could convince the Doctor, though.”

“We’ll try to-morrow night at Faculty meeting,” was the answer. “I, for one, am opposed to holding those boys guilty under the circumstances. And McIntyre and Bendix are with me.”

“So am I,” said Mr. Collins. “But we are only four out of ten; and the Doctor is as--hum--determined as a mule in this affair.”

“Well, it’s a blessed shame, that’s what I call it,” said Mr. Austin warmly. “Think of keeping Loring out of the game Saturday! And we’ll lose it as sure as shooting!”

“I wouldn’t mention that phase of it, though,” said the other with a smile. “The Doctor might think we were letting our desire to win the Broadwood game prejudice us.”

“Pshaw!” said Stevie.

Next to Loring and Dyer I doubt if anyone felt much worse about their misfortune than did Dan. But it was Loring that he was especially sorry for. He had grown to like the latter immensely. Loring had been kind to him in a dozen ways, at a dozen times, and mainly when kindnesses meant much. Doubtless Dan over-valued those kindnesses. True it is that by this time his attitude toward Alfred Loring had become similar to Gerald’s attitude toward him. It was a case of healthy hero-worship in each instance. And of late Dan and Loring had been seeing a good deal of each other and the friendship had been ripening on each side.

At first Dan hesitated to call on Loring, fearing that the latter might resent intrusion. But a chance word on Tuesday settled that matter and on Tuesday night Dan went over to Dudley and spent an hour with the room-mates. Of course the blue paint episode was the main subject of conversation, and between them they went over it time and again seeking to discover some clue which might lead them to the identity of the real culprit. But always they met with failure. Loring’s spirits were pretty low, but Dyer’s were lower, and for a quite unselfish reason.

“I don’t care so much about myself,” he said, “for I’d only have got into the game for a few minutes, maybe. But it makes me mad about Alf. Why the dickens couldn’t it have been someone else, Vinton? Almost any other fellow on the team would have been better! Why, thunder, I’d fess up to doing the whole thing alone; only they wouldn’t believe me!”

“Of course they wouldn’t,” said Loring smilingly. “Especially as I’d swear you were lying, Tom.”

“That’s so,” said Dan thoughtfully, “almost any other fellow on the team would have been better.”

Somehow that remark of Tom Dyer’s stuck with him the rest of the evening and recurred to him throughout the next day. That was Wednesday, and the school was excited and impatient to learn what action the Faculty would take. The meeting was held in Oxford A at eight o’clock. At half-past nine Mr. Austin brought news of it to Dudley Hall. The verdict stood. The Doctor had been implacable and a majority of the Faculty had stood with him. The verdict had gone forth that until the culprit had publicly erased the obnoxious letters from the front of Dudley, Loring’s and Dyer’s probation was to continue. The news spread fast and in a few minutes a hundred and more students were assembled in the Yard making night hideous with their expressions of disapproval. There were cheers for Mr. Collins, for Mr. Austin, for Mr. Bendix and for Professor McIntyre, especially for Kilts, for since the school had learned of his attempt to eradicate the paint and save the culprits there had been a reversal of opinion regarding him. Kilts was now on the topmost wave of popularity, but I don’t think he ever knew it. Finally the school leaders and a few of the instructors persuaded the fellows to abandon their meeting and return to their rooms.

The final practice was held secretly on Thursday afternoon, and the whole school marched cheering to Yardley Field and witnessed the ten minutes of scrimmaging which terminated it. The songs were sung and each member of the team was cheered to the echo. Payson was cheered, and Andy Ryan, and Paddy Forbes. And then “nine long ones” were given for the Second Team. And after that the First trotted back to the gymnasium and the Second got together in the middle of the big, bare field and, led by Ridge, cheered them heartily. And the last practice was over and Yardley faced the final conflict.

The enthusiasm continued all that evening and all the next day when fresh fuel was added to it by the deciding game in the class championship series. This was between the First Class and the Second and was played on the varsity gridiron and witnessed by every fellow who could get to it. It was a good contest and First Class won by a single score, 16 to 12. First Class celebrated mightily and all the rest of the evening and far into the night sporadic cheers for “First, First, First!” echoed on the frosty air.

Dan paid a visit to Payson that evening after supper. The coach was in his room looking rather glumly at an evening paper which compared the chances of Broadwood and Yardley in Saturday’s contest and which awarded the game to Broadwood in advance. Payson was too experienced to believe all that he read in the newspapers, but the writer’s views chimed in with his own and he was much inclined to credit the paper with the gift of prophecy. He appeared very glad to see Dan, as doubtless he was. For a time they spoke of the double forward pass.

“It’s a good play, Vinton,” declared Payson almost cheerfully, “and we’ll make it work. We’ve got you to thank for that. If we had Loring I’d bet a carload of hats that we’d win. As it is--” He shrugged his shoulders disconsolately--“we’re in for a licking of some sort. I wouldn’t say this to everyone, but you’re a sensible chap, Vinton, and will play as well if not better with defeat staring at you.”

“I’ll do the best I can, sir,” answered Dan rather listlessly. “How about Williams, Mr. Payson? Won’t he be able to play?”

“Yes, he’s in good shape, again, and we may need him before we’re through.”

“Don’t you think he can play end as well as I can, sir?”

Payson looked puzzled.

“What are you after, Vinton?” he asked. “Compliments?”

“No, sir, I was just wondering whether if I wasn’t on the team Williams wouldn’t do just as well.”

“What’s the matter with you?” asked the coach anxiously.

“Nothing, sir. I’m feeling fine. I just wondered.”

“Well, then I’ll tell you. Williams is about as good an end as you are to-day, but you’ll have him beat in another year if you keep on improving as you have lately. He’s a little surer on tackling than you are, and he stops his man better. But you handle forward passes in better shape and seem to be quicker at sizing-up plays. There’s a fair criticism, Vinton. How do you like it?”

“I guess you’ve let me off pretty easy, sir,” Dan replied with a smile. “But I’m much obliged. If I couldn’t play, then, Williams would do just as well, wouldn’t he?”

“Look here, Vinton,” said Payson with a frown, “you go and see Ryan and do as he tells you; understand?”

“Oh, I’m all right, sir; honest!” Dan assured him. “I--I just sort of wondered--” Payson smiled.

“You stop wondering and go to bed,” he said kindly.