CHAPTER XIV

HOCKEY--WITH VARIATIONS

Allan, Tommy, and Hal stood at the side of the rink, up to their ankles in snow, and watched Pete play hockey. The rink was built at the far end of Erskine Field, and looked, from the locker house, like a brand-new cattle-pen.

This Saturday afternoon it was snowing in a half-hearted way, making the ice slushy and hiding the town from view. There were about fifty other fellows looking on, for the Midyears had begun, and anything to take the mind off examinations was welcome. The varsity team had traveled down the river to play Hastings High School, and the freshman team was making the most of its opportunities.

There were only twelve candidates present, and so the opposing teams each lacked a forward. But in spite of this the play was fast and furious, making up in enthusiasm what it lacked in science. Pete was playing cover-point on the first team, and thus far his performance had not lacked of applause. If some of the applause was unmistakably sarcastic, still it was applause.

Pete was a hard skater and very much at home on the ice, but there wasn’t much of grace about him. He hadn’t as yet learned the subtleties of stick-handling, but he usually managed to get the puck by the simple expedient of skating full-tilt against the opponent and knocking him down in a good-natured, inoffensive way. Allan, Tommy, and Hal felt, as they watched, that they were being fully rewarded for tramping out there through the snow.

“Let’s see you skate backward, Pete,” called Allan in a lull of the game. Pete grinned.

“Give us the grape-vine, Pete,” begged Tommy. Pete grinned again.

“How are you on the outer-edge, old man?” asked Hal. Pete continued to grin.

Then the puck came sliding down toward him, dribbled this way and that by the hockey of an opposing forward. Pete drew himself together, grasped his stick in both hands as though it was a bludgeon, and rushed toward the foe. Down went the foe, and the three admirers laughed joyfully. But Pete didn’t get the puck, for the vanquished one had succeeded in passing it across to another forward, exhibiting the first suggestion of team-play of the afternoon, so far as the second team was concerned, and Pete skated wildly in pursuit. The point went out to meet the attack, another clever pass was made, and then-- Presto! goal was shaking his head and pulling the disk out from under the netting. The second had scored.

“Ah, that was great work, Pete!” cried Allan, admiringly.

“That was _playing_!” said Hal. “Oh, it was great!”

“Real science, _I_ call it!” declared Tommy. “How’d you do it, Pete?”

“Don’t you mind their scoring, Pete,” said Allan, encouragingly. “You knocked your man down. Just you kill all you want to.”

Pete skated over and scattered them with his hockey.

“You wait till I get these skates off,” he threatened, “and I’ll roll you three little snipes in the snow!”

“Don’t waste your strength on us, Pete,” begged Tommy from a safe distance. “Slaughter the enemy. Don’t be discouraged; there’s only six left.”

“Eat ’em up, Pete!” cried Hal.

Pete shook his stick at them and turned away. As he skated back to his position a chorus of admiring “A-a-ahs!” followed him. When the second half was almost done the score was 5 to 6, in the first team’s favor, and the captain of the second, a big, round-faced chap who played center, called on his support for a goal.

“Play hard, fellows, and let’s tie this!” he commanded. “Play together now!”

Fortune seemed to be favoring them. They secured the rubber and swept with it down the rink. As usual, Pete put one man out of the play, but by the time he had recovered from the check the advance was past him and was threatening the goal. Both teams were mixed in wild confusion, and the puck was carroming about from goal to attack and from attack to defense. Then it was sped knee-high at the net, was luckily stopped by the goal, and shot out to the side right at Pete’s feet.

Pete started off with it, but was in such a hurry that he overskated, and had to fight for it. When he again secured possession the attack was thick about him. But he started off again, and the forwards of his side skated to their positions. Pete kept close to the boards, fooled the opposing cover-point by carroming the puck against them, and for an instant had a clear shot at goal. But shooting wasn’t Pete’s specialty, and so he charged on until, well past the center of the ice, the second team’s captain charged him fiercely from the side, hurling him against the boards and knocking his stick into the air.

Luckily, the puck struck the adversary’s skate and carromed back to the side, and Pete, thrusting his skate against it, held it there while the other pushed and shoved with his body and tried to work the puck loose with his stick. About them hovered friend and foe, awaiting the instant when the disk should slide out of the _mêlée_.

The second-team player fought like mad and at last, by a fierce shove, moved Pete’s foot. Pete, fearing loss of the precious prize, swung quickly around, bringing his adversary to the boards, and then, catching him with one hand at the knee, tipped him over the barrier into the soft snow.

Without waiting to see him safely landed, Pete rescued the puck from an interloping enemy and went straight down the rink with it, scorning friend and foe alike, and drove it furiously into goal. When he swung around and looked back, it seemed that a devastating gale had swept over the rink, for along his route first-team men and second-team men were picking themselves up from the ice. But what surprised him more was the appearance of the second’s captain, who, snow-covered, black of face and scowling, was swaggering up to him.

“What did you do that for?” he growled.

From the sides of the rink came shouts of laughter. Allan, Hal, and Tommy were hanging feebly over the barrier, beating the planks with their hands in gasping impotence.

“Do what?” asked Pete, plainly at a loss.

“Throw me over the boards,” answered the other, belligerently.

“Oh, that?” asked Pete. “Why, you were in my way, you see.”

“You shouldn’t have done that, Burley,” said the first team’s captain. “But you needn’t try and scrap here on the ice,” he continued, turning to the other. “Play the game!”

“Look here,” said Pete, “wasn’t that all right? Mustn’t I do that?”

“Of course you can’t. You ought to know the rules. The puck goes back there again.” The first’s captain turned away impatiently.

“It’s on me, partner,” said Pete. “Sorry, and hope I didn’t hurt you.”

“All right,” muttered the other, as graciously as he could. The knowledge that he had served as a source of intense amusement prevented him from putting much cordiality into his tones. The puck was taken back to where Pete had transgressed the rules, and again faced off by him and the second’s captain. The latter got possession and the play went on, but to the onlookers it was very dull, and none cared when, after a minute or two, the game came to an end.

Allan, Hal, and Tommy, still very red of face and still grinning, awaited Pete and escorted him back to the college in triumph, Hal marching ahead and chanting an improvised pæan of praise until Pete seized him and rolled him over in the snow. Thereupon Hal retired to a safe distance and threw snowballs at Pete. He was not, however, a very good shot and, as a result, Tommy and Allan were hit more often than their companion. It ended with the three joining forces against the obnoxious Hal and chasing him all the way down Poplar Street.

When he reached Mrs. Purdy’s, in his retreat, he withdrew into Allan’s room, locked the door, and sent Two Spot, a white handkerchief tied around her neck, out by way of a window, to treat with the besiegers. The flag of truce was respected. Hal opened the window and agreed to surrender if allowed to march forth from the citadel with colors flying, and his terms were accepted. He retired from view and presently reappeared in Allan’s plaid dressing-gown, and holding aloft a Hillton flag. Silently and proudly he marched forth and twice paraded the piazza. Then the enemy, violating the rules of warfare, fell upon him as one man, and he was borne, struggling and kicking, back into the citadel and deposited on the couch.

Allan returned to the front yard and rescued his handkerchief, which was trailing in the snow as Two Spot chased an imaginary mouse around the bare and solitary rose-bush. Tommy had meanwhile poked the fire into a blaze, and victors and vanquished drew up to it, while Pete smoked the pipe of peace and the others ate sweet chocolate, which, as Tommy pointed out, represented the fruits of victory.

Two Spot sat on Pete’s broad knee and purred and blinked at the flames and occasionally stuck her claws tentatively through Pete’s trousers as a proof of her affection. And everybody felt very jolly and comfortable until the six-o’clock bell sent them to prepare for dinner.