Events took place so fast that week that even Hugh’s composure was affected. On Tuesday Coach Bonner began preparations for the Lawrence Textile game and every effort was made to develop the team’s offence. To this end, following a more than ordinarily lengthy and severe signal drill, during which three new plays were tried out, the scrimmage with the second was changed from two fifteen-minute to three twelve-minute periods. The second had to wait nearly twenty minutes for the first team, and, since the weather had turned cold with a vengeance, they wrapped themselves in blankets and huddled together out of the teeth of a brisk east wind. By the time Coach Bonner sent his charges on the field the second team were pretty well chilled through and let-down. The fact showed in their playing and the first ran away with the period and scored a touchdown and a field-goal. In the second twelve minutes the scrubs found themselves and put up a good defensive game, with the result that the first failed to get nearer to the goal line than the thirty yards. From there, in the last minute or two, Captain Trafford tried a place-goal. But the wind was too much for him and the ball went wide.
In the last period Hugh found himself in constant demand. So far Brunswick and Manson, the left half and the full-back, had done the brunt of the work, save when an end had run behind the line. Hugh had been used but three times in the attack, each time taking the ball for wide end runs and only once gaining. But now, Derry having replaced Roy Dresser at left end, Captain Myatt changed his tactics. Second received the ball on a punt a few minutes after the period started and it was Neil Ayer who began the trouble. On the first play, faking a pass to full-back, he plunged straight through the center of the first team’s line for a down. Then came a fake end-around play, Bellows leaving his place at left end and dashing behind Ayer and, followed by the left half, plunging around the right wing of the line. Then, hugging the ball a moment, Ayer shot it to Hugh, and Hugh, with full-back interfering, went the other way. The play was good for nearly twenty yards, for Hugh displayed an almost uncanny elusiveness, slipping between tacklers, dodging, twisting and always going ahead. Manson was soon upset, but Hugh feinted and fought on to the forty-eight yards before he was finally stopped. The second laughed and taunted as they lined up again. Manson shot into left tackle but was stopped for a yard. Ayer tried a quarter-back run and made three. Then Hugh heard the signals again summon him. This time it was a straight run around his own left end. Derry was pulled out and Franklin was neatly boxed and only the first team’s secondary defence kept Hugh from again getting safely away. As it was he added six yards and made first down once more. Brunswick fumbled on the next play and Manson recovered for a five-yard loss. Hugh failed on a wide run around his own left end, being thrown by Ted Trafford, and Ayer kicked from position.
The first came back hard then and tested the second’s defence pretty severely. Siedhof gave place to Hanser on the first and Boynton took Brunswick’s place on the second. The second also put in a new left tackle and a new left guard. First was using straight line-plunges and getting away with them. On the second’s fifteen yards Vail, right half on the first, was hurt in a tackle and Zanetti went in. Twice the second held the besiegers under the shadow of their goal and then Ted Trafford tried another goal from placement and barely made it.
Second kicked off and Nick ran back to the forty-five yards, through most of the second team. Then two line plays were stopped for small gains and Keyes threw forward to Tray near the second’s thirty-five and the right end made a clever running catch and added another five yards of territory before Myatt downed him. With time almost up and the ball on the second’s thirty, Nick again called for a forward, but this time the ball grounded. A skin-tackle around Spalding netted four yards and Keyes plunged through Longley for two more. Keyes then went back to drop-kick and when the ball shot to him the first team’s left side crumbled badly and Bowen hurled himself through and blocked. The ball trickled up the field to the twenty yards before Zanetti fell on it. Two wide sweeps by Keyes around the left end gained but four and once more he tried for a field goal. But the angle was extreme and the ball went astray.
Longley kicked off to Zanetti, who caught on his fifteen, fumbled, recovered and was thrown by Forbes and promptly sat on by Hugh. The first got to the twenty yards on two plunges and Keyes punted. Hugh, playing back with Ayer, caught near his forty and ran across the field, avoiding the first team’s left end, and Ayer and Forbes formed into interference and disposed of two of the enemy. Hugh was still running toward the other side line, zig-zagging miraculously between his foes. Thrice he was almost caught and thrice he managed to escape. Then his interference went to pieces and he was speeding down the field some five yards from the side line with not one chance in ten of getting away. A first team tackle dived and missed, Hanser loomed in his path and Hugh went around him like a frightened rabbit and suddenly only Nick was left to contend against, Nick running fast a few yards behind and gaining a little at every stride.
Near the twenty-five yards Hugh shot a quick glance behind him and then, with an unexpected increase of speed, cut across in front of Nick just out of reach and headed straight for the goal. Zanetti and others were trailing along some ten yards back and this change of direction brought them nearer their prey, and Zanetti took courage and sprinted. But it was Nick who was destined to save the day for the first. Try as he might, Hugh couldn’t shake him off, and just short of the twelve yards it was all over. Nick’s arms slipped around Hugh’s knees and all the latter could do was hug the ball very tightly and go down. And as he did so he heard Nick’s voice.
“Sorry,” panted Nick, “but—I—gotter—do it!”
Although second lined up quickly and shot Manson at the center, it was not destined that they were to score. Manson got a scant yard, whistle and horn sounded together, and the game was done.
“We’d have gone over in two more plays,” panted Neil Ayer as he walked off beside Hugh. “I don’t believe time was up. They were afraid we’d score on them! That was a pretty run of yours, Hobo. I thought you were gone a dozen times. You sure can dodge like a rabbit. Where’d you learn it?”
“I don’t know,” said Hugh. “Right here, I fancy.”
“Haven’t you ever played before?”
Hugh shook his head and Neil viewed him appraisingly. “You’re built for it, I suppose. If you had another twenty pounds on you you’d be a wonder.”
The school seemed much inclined to consider him a wonder as he was, and his fame grew mightily. Hugh made the discovery that evening that his circle of acquaintances was much wider than he had supposed. Fellows who had previously never noticed his existence spoke to him almost eagerly and seemed quite pleased if Hugh, disguising his surprise, murmured a response. Juniors gazed upon him with bated breath, only daring to nod, but upper-class fellows called him “Hobo” to his face and grinned in friendly manner. Of course he liked it; no fellow could fail to; but it made him feel, as he confided to Bert, “a bit of an ass, if you know what I mean.”
He went to bed that Tuesday night a star half-back on the second team. He awoke on Wednesday morning a substitute on the first, but he didn’t know it because he hadn’t overheard part of a conversation which had taken place the evening before in the front room of a little white house in the village. The front room, used by Coach Bonner as a sitting-room, held two persons beside the head coach. These were Assistant Athletic Director Crowley and Trainer Richards. It was no uncommon thing for them to meet there after supper and go over the day’s work together, and now that the season was nearing its end these conferences took place almost every night. The portion of the conversation which would have interested Hugh had he heard it was this:
“That lays Vail off for most of the week, then,” mused Mr. Bonner. Davy Richards nodded.
“When do you want Winslow to come back?” asked the coach.
“He might play Saturday if you need him. I’ve got a pad fixed up for him.”
“Can he get into practice by Thursday?”
“Sure, if he don’t get into it too hard.”
“He will have to play Saturday, that’s certain. Half the game, anyway. That leaves me short in the back-field. That fellow Hanser doesn’t work very well, Dan.”
“He’s as good as I’ve got, Coach.”
“He may be now, but he won’t be if Ordway keeps coming. That kid’s a wonder in a broken field. If you built up a game around him, Dan, you’d have a mighty good attack for the middle of the field.”
“He’s clever,” acknowledged Mr. Crowley, “but he’s light. Next year——”
“Tell you what, Dan, you take Hanser and let me have Ordway. Look here. Mount Morris has a heavy, slow line and her ends aren’t remarkable when you come right down to brass tacks. They haven’t shown anything against any team they’ve met yet. Did you read the Mount Morris—St. James game? Well, Mount Morris’ ends were never under the punts. St. James ran the ball back five to fifteen yards every time. With ends like those, why couldn’t this Ordway fellow get away? Wait a bit. Suppose we worked up a shift formation that brought their tackle over to the long side of their line. Then suppose we send a fake attack on that side, pull Trafford out and send him and Ordway around the short end? Why wouldn’t that make a good get-away play around the twenty-five-yard line? I believe we could work up a play that could score for us. That rascal is a marvel at squeezing through the tight places. All he needs is a lot of work to give him experience.”
“Too light in weight,” growled Mr. Crowley. “They’d stop him quick.”
“Sure, they would if they caught him. But he’s something like an eel, as I figure it. No, you take Hanser and give me Ordway, Dan, and I’ll make a regular back of that kid. Or I will if he doesn’t get hurt. That’s one trouble; he’s likely to bust something, I guess.”
“Not him, Coach,” said Davy. “He’s the supple kind.” (Davy pronounced it “soople,” though.) “There ain’t a stiff bone in his body, sir.”
“Well, you can have him, of course,” said Mr. Crowley. “Maybe you’re right, too. He is clever, and he—he’s neat; handles the ball nice, travels nice; sort of clean-cut in his style.”
“Good! Send him to me tomorrow, Dan.”
And that is why Hugh, or, as he was popularly known now, Hobo Ordway, again transferred his ketchup bottle and marmalade jar, this time back to Lothrop and the first-team training table, and also why he came to find himself at four-fifteen on Wednesday afternoon sitting beside Bert on the first-team bench, very much surprised and a little bit frightened at what was before him!