CHAPTER XV
IN THE "CORRAL"
While the snow kept piling itself up and the Midyears were stillracking fellows' brains, the call came for candidates for the relayteam to run against Robinson at the Boston indoor meeting. Andsimultaneously the outdoor track was shoveled free of snow and fellowswhose ambitions pointed toward the winning of pewter mugs trotted outin the afternoons, when the mercury was down to zero, and sped aroundthe track with their bare legs looking very pink and cold. Kernahanhad induced Allan to enter for both the mile and the two mile, and thelatter was one of the most indefatigable of those who daily riskeddeath by freezing.
He was glad to be able to stretch his legs again, was Allan. He hadbegun to wonder whether the muscles hadn't forgotten how to work. Hehad his first mile trial a week after the beginning of practise and afortnight before the date of the meeting.
The result wasn't especially satisfactory; 4:56 was not anywhere nearrecord time for that track, while it was more than twenty secondsslower than what it must be to give him a chance at winning a place.But Kernahan seemed in nowise discouraged. Instead, he told Allan hehad done well enough for a starter, and promised to give him a trial atthe two miles a week later.
Meanwhile the relay candidates were tested and sifted, the candidatesfor the field events practised daily in the gymnasium, and athleticactivity seized upon the college. The baseball cage resounded withthe thump of the balls and the cries of the players, the rowing-roomgave forth strange sounds of an afternoon, and the basket-ball team,undisputed lords of the gymnasium floor for two months, were hustledinto a corner and given scant attention.
And yet, in spite of all these hints, Winter was strangely dense.Instead of folding up his blanket of snow and taking himself off, heshowed no sign of contemplated departure, but on the contrary tightenedhis icy grip on the world, and almost every day sent a new snow-stormto emphasize the fact that he still reigned.
Afternoon practise on the track took place in every sort of weather.Sometimes it snowed so hard that the runners, as they swept around thefar end of the track, were only indistinct blurs in the white mist.Sometimes the track was sheeted with a rough skim of ice, throughwhich the men's spikes broke imperfectly, and on such days the spillswere numerous and the turns were things to be carefully negotiated.Sometimes the sun shone and the wind blew, straight and cold, out ofthe northeast; and such times were best, deluding one for a while, asthey did, into thinking that winter's sway was drawing to its end. Butthey were deceitful moments, and one could fancy old Winter shakinghis lean sides with laughter as he drew the clouds together again andemptied a new shower of flakes upon the bleak world.
But matters progressed. The relay team of six runners was formed, thesprinters and distance men worked themselves into condition, and thehurdlers, jumpers, vaulters, and weight men limbered up their muscles.
A week before the meeting Allan was given a speed trial for the twomiles. The track was in fairly good condition, and Rindgely andThatcher made the pace. With Allan was another two-mile candidate,named Conroy. Allan took the lead at the start and held it for thefirst half mile. Rindgely went in then and made the pace for the nextthree-quarters, and then gave place to Thatcher, a half-miler. Conroywas a lap behind at the half distance, and at the finish was entirelyout of it. Allan found his sprinting ability sorely tried in the lasttwo laps when Thatcher let himself out and Allan tried to keep up withhim. But he finished fairly strong, and Kernahan slipped his watch intohis pocket with a nod of approval.
"Ten, one and an eighth," he said.
But that seemed slow time to Allan, who had entertained visions ofdoing the distance in something like 9:50, and he said so to Billy.
"Well, that's good enough to give you a chance of a place," heanswered. "You've got three months yet before the dual meet, andRobinson's best two-miler could only do--9:46, I think it was. You'llget some experience at the Boston meet, if you don't bring home a mug,and experience is what you need. You'll have to get into your pacesooner down there or you'll get crowded off the track. You try half adozen starts Monday and try getting your pace in the first six or eightstrides. You'd better run along now, and don't be scarey of the coldwater, my boy."
During that next week the class hockey championship was decided. Thefreshmen won handily from the sophomores by the score of seven goalsto three in the first of the contests, and to Pete went the credit forfour of the seven goals. He played magnificently.
To be sure, as has been said already, he knew little of the science ofthe game, but what he lacked there he made up in vigor and enthusiasm.Thrice he was put off the ice for short periods, but this only causedhim to work harder when he was allowed to re-enter the game. In thesecond half--the first period having ended with the score three to fourin favor of '07--he was played up into the forward line, and when hesecured the puck and once got away with it, it was his until he hadshot at the sophomores' goal. If Pete had been able to shoot as well ashe skated and dodged the enemy, the score would have been overwhelming.
But Pete's Waterloo came when the deciding game was contested with '04.Pete's playing was just as hard and fast as before, but the seniors hadtwo or three players who, in the language of Tommy, "made rings aroundhim." Every time Pete tried one of his sensational rushes, some one orother of the discourteous enemy, carefully avoiding his body, stole thepuck from under his nose. Pete endured it for a while untroubled, thenhe began to break hockeys. But the supply seemed unlimited, and theremedy wasn't successful. Defeat fell to '07's share.
They tried to tease Pete on the afternoon's performance that evening,but Pete was invulnerable to gibes. The four had congregated in the"corral" and were hugging the stove closely, Pete sitting astride thestock saddle which, for want of a chair, he had lugged from its corner.
"Must have cost you something for sticks," Tommy suggested.
"Must have cost the other fellows something," laughed Hal. "I sawRindgely lose three. You were a destructive chap, Pete."
"Rindgely was plumb crazy," answered Pete, with a broad smile. "Everytime he got a new stick, I bust it for him. I don't just know whetherthat's good hockey, but I know it worked mighty well. But Rindgely'sgot it in for me, all right."
"He seems to have it in for me too," said Allan, thoughtfully. "Theother day he didn't want to make pace for me when I tried the twomiles, and acted nasty as you like afterward in the locker house."
"He's a queer customer," said Tommy. "A pretty good fellow to keep awayfrom. I don't mean that there's anything wrong with him, you know, buthe's awfully uncertain. You never can tell how he's going to take athing. Just after recess I met him one day, and asked him if he'd takenin the St. Thomas Club Indoor Meet--he lives in Brooklyn, you know--andhe nearly took my head off; said he wasn't home Christmas, and impliedthat it was none of my business. I told him I didn't care a rap wherehe was."
"That's right, Tommy; don't you let them monkey with you," laughedAllan.
"Well, what did he want to jump on me for?" asked Tommy, warmly. "Ididn't care whether he went to the old meet or not; I just wanted to bepolite. The reason I mentioned the meet was that he'd told about goingthe year before while he was at home, and I just happened to rememberseeing something about it before Christmas. It's an open meeting, youknow, and they have a big card--weights, team races, boxing, and allsorts of stunts."
"What is he, a miler?" asked Hal.
Tommy nodded.
"Guess that explains his cutting up with you, Allan; you beat him inthe fall, didn't you?"
"Yes, with a good big handicap."
"Well, he's afraid you're going to cut him out of a place in the dualmeet."
"There's no good reason why he should think so. He can beat me, I'mpretty sure. Besides, if Billy Kernahan has his way, I'll be down onlyfor the two miles at the dual."
"We're going to have a dandy article on the indoor meeting this week,"said Tommy.
"Wrote it yourself, eh?" suggested Hal.
"I suppose it will be like last y
ear's, though," Tommy continued,ruefully. "We had two columns, with everything figured out finely: whowas going to do what, and which fellows would win places. And then itcame out all wrong."
"Say, Thomas," said Pete, when the laughter had subsided, "I don't wantto hurry you, but I'm getting the powerful hungers."
"Yes, Tommy, how about that dinner at the Elm Tree?" chimed in Hal.
"He's making money to pay for it," said Allan.
"No, I'm not," answered Tommy, sadly. "That's the trouble. You'll haveto wait a bit, Pete; I'm dead broke, honest Injun!"
"All right; just so long as I get that feed. Better not put it off toolong, though; I'm nicely conditioned, you know, since the Midyears, andthere's no telling what may happen to me."
"That's so," Allan said. "A fellow that's been drowned, suspended,and put on probation, all in two short months, is a pretty slipperycustomer."
"Say, Allan," said Tommy, reminiscently, "do you remember the night wewaited up here for that duffer to come home?"
"The night he was drowned?" asked Allan. "Never'll forget it. The waythe wind howled and cut up was a caution; made me think of graveyardsand--and corpses."
"Me, too," said Tommy. "I went back to the room and dreamed of Petefloating in my bath-tub, with his old smelly pipe in his mouth and hisface all white and horrid. Every time he puffed on the pipe he winkedhis eye at me, and I woke up yelling like a good one." Tommy arose fromhis seat and stood gazing into the flames. "It was a beast of a dream."
"Must have been," Hal responded, sympathetically. Pete puffed silentlyat the afore-mentioned pipe and grinned heartlessly. Tommy glanced overat him and commenced an aimless ramble about the room.
"I said then," he went on, "that if Pete-- Say, it's getting beastlyhot in here. Let's have the door open."
In spite of the protests, he opened the portal into the narrow hallway,and continued his rambling and his talk.
"I made up my mind then that if Pete wasn't drowned, that if I ever sawhis dear, foolish, homely face again, I'd--I'd----"
"Be a better man," Hal suggested.
"Learn to write English," offered Allan.
"Pay your debts," muttered Pete over his pipe-stem.
"_I'd take a fall out of him!_" concluded Tommy, savagely. At thesame instant he put a hand under Pete's chin, tipped him heels overhead backward onto the floor, smothered his outcries by banging thesaddle down over his face, punched him twice in the ribs--and flew!His forethought in opening the door saved him. As he dived through heslammed it behind him in Pete's face, and the others heard four wildleaps on the staircase. Then all was still save for Pete's chuckles.But stay! What sound was that from beneath the window; what dolefulwailings broke upon the night air? They hearkened.
"Cowardy, cowardy, cowardy cat!" shrilled Tommy. "Dare you to comedown, Pete Burley!"
Pete threw up a front window. There was a sound of hasty footfalls andan exclamation as Tommy collided with an ash-barrel. Then from far upthe street came a last defiant challenge: "_O Fresh!_"