Hurry up, now, he commanded. Get up to the gym, and dont be afraid of the water when you get there.
This familiar formula met with the usual groans and hoots, and Kernahan grinned about the tent. Starting to withdraw his bullet-shaped head with its scant adornment of carroty hair, the trainers eyes fell on Allan. He picked his way over the tangle of legs.
Well, are you done up? he asked. Allan shook his head.
Thats the boy, then! continued Billy, heartily. Youd better come out Monday and well see what you can do. Did you ever run much?
Some, answered Allan, at school.
Well, you see me Monday.
When the trainer had gone, Hooker called across:
Say, Ware, youre done for now.
Hows that? asked Allan.
Why, when Billy takes a fancy to you, he just merely works you to death. You weigh when you get over to gym and then weigh again, say, three weeks from now. You wont know yourself.
A laugh went up. Rindgely chimed in with:
Youll find your work different from winning a mile with a couple of hundred yards handicap.
Allan had only had one hundred and twenty, but he didnt think it worth while correcting Rindgely, who was evidently rather sore over his defeat. Harris unexpectedly took up for him.
He didnt have that much handicap, Larry; and if he had, it wouldnt have made any difference to you, you old ice-wagon. What was the matter with you, anyhow?
Rindgely entered into elaborate explanations, which concerned the state of the track, the injustice of the handicapping, and many other things, and Harris laughed them to scorn.
Oh, youre just lazy, he jibed. Your names Lazy Larry.
A howl of delight went up, and Allan looked to see Rindgely become angry. But, after a moment of indecision, he added his chuckle to the general hilarity. Allan turned to Harris.
I was rather done up after the run, he said, and some fellow must have lugged me over here. Did you happen to see who he was?
Yes; one of your class, a whopping big fellow named Burley. Know him, dont you?
Allan shook his head thoughtfully.
Well, you will when you see him.
Harris picked up his togs and hurried off. Allan would have liked to walk back with him to the gym, but he thought the junior might think him fresh if he offered his company, and so he started back alone. It was almost dark now, and the lights in the college yard and in the village were twinkling brightly when he reached the corner of Poplar Street and turned down that elm-roofed thoroughfare toward his room. Poplar Street ends at Main Street in a little triangular grass-grown space known as College Park, and Allans room was in the rambling corner house that faces the park and trails its length along Main Street. Allan thought his address sounded rather well: 1 College Park had an aristocratic sound that pleased him. And since he had been unable to secure accommodations in one of the dormitories, he considered himself lucky to have found such comfortable quarters as Mrs. Purdys house afforded.
His room was large, with two windows in front reaching to the floor and four others arranged in couples along the side, and affording a clear view of the college yard, from McLean Hall to the library. The fact that former denizens had left comfortable window-seats at each side casement was a never-failing source of satisfaction to the new occupant of what the landlady called the parlor study. In Allans case, it was study and bedroom too. Next year Allan meant to room in the Yard, and for the present he was very well satisfied.
His occupancy of less than a month had not staled the pleasure derived from knowing himself sole owner of all the apartments array of brand-new furniture, carpeting, and draperies. To-night, after he had lighted all four of the burners in the gilded chandelier above the table, he paused with the charred match in hand and looked about him with satisfaction.
The carpet was beautifully crimson, the draperies at the windows were equally resplendent, if more variegated in hue, the big study-table shone richly and reflected the light in its polished top, and the more familiar objects on the mantel and on the dark walls, accumulations of his school years, seemed to return his gaze with friendly interest. To-night, with the knowledge of his victory on the track adding new glamour to the scene, it seemed to Allan that his first year of college life was destined to be very happy and splendid.
He stayed only long enough to change collar and cuffs, and then, with a boys cheerful disregard of economy, left the four lights flaring and hurried across Main Street to Brown Hall and dinner.
The afternoons work had put a sharp edge on his appetite, and, having nodded to one or two acquaintances, he lost no time in addressing himself to the agreeable task of causing the total disappearance of a plate of soup. His preoccupation gives us an excellent opportunity to make a critical survey of him without laying ourselves open to the charge of impoliteness.
Allan Ware was eighteen years old, a straight, lithe lad, with rather rebellious brown hair and a face still showing the summers tan. His features were not perfect by any means, but they were all good, and if you would not have thought of calling the face handsome, you would nevertheless have liked it on the instant. There was a clearness and steadiness about the brown eyes, a gentleness about the mouth, and a firmness about the chin which all combined to render the countenance attractive and singularly wholesome. It was a face with which one would never think of associating meanness. And yet to jump to the conclusion that Allan had never done a mean act would have been rash; he was only an average boy, and as human as any of them.
Allan had come up to Erskine from Hillton without heralding; he was not a star football player, a brilliant baseball man, nor a famous athlete; he had always run in the distances at the preparatory school principally because he liked running and not because he believed himself cut out for a record breaker. His afternoons performance had been as much of a surprise to him as to any. At Hillton he had been rather popular among his set, but he had never attempted to become a leader. His classmates had gone to other colleges many to Harvard and Yale, a few to Columbia and Princeton, only one to Erskine. Allan had chosen the latter college to please his mother; his own inclinations had been toward Yale, for Allan had lived all his life in New Haven, and was blue all through.
But Allans grandfather had gone to Erskine his name was one of those engraved on the twin tablets in the chapel transept, tablets sacred to the memories of those sons of Erskine who had given their lives in the struggle for the preservation of the Union and Allans father had gone there, too. Allan couldnt remember very much about his father the latter had died when the boy was ten years old but he sympathized with his mothers wish that he also should receive his education under the elms of Centerport.
His family was not any too well supplied with wealth, but his mothers tastes were simple and her wants few, and there had always been enough money forthcoming for the needs of his sister Dorothy, two years his junior, and for himself. If there had been any sacrifices at home, he had never known of them. At Hillton he had had about everything he wanted his tastes were never extravagant and the subject of money had never occupied his thoughts. At eighteen, if one is normal, there are heaps of things far more interesting than money. One of them is dinner.
Allan was much interested in dinner to-night. He even found it necessary to indulge in a couple of extras, in order to satisfy a very healthy appetite. For these he signed with an impressive flourish. When the last spoonful of ice-cream had disappeared he pushed back his chair and went out. In the coat-room he found a dark-complexioned and heavily built youth in the act of drawing on a pair of overshoes.
Allan was much interested in dinner to-night. He even found it necessary to indulge in a couple of extras, in order to satisfy a very healthy appetite. For these he signed with an impressive flourish. When the last spoonful of ice-cream had disappeared he pushed back his chair and went out. In the coat-room he found a dark-complexioned and heavily built youth in the act of drawing on a pair of overshoes.
Couldnt find my boots, explained Hal Smiths, so I put these over my slippers. Wait a minute and Ill go along.
They left the hall together and walked briskly toward Main Street. Allan and Hal Smiths had never been particularly intimate at Hillton, but as they were the only two fellows from that school in the freshman class, they had naturally enough felt drawn toward each other since they had reached Erskine. During the last week, however, Hal had been making friends fast, and as a consequence Allan had seen less of him. Hal had quite a reputation, gained during his last year at Hillton, as a full-back, and he was generally conceded to be certain of making the freshman football team, if not the varsity second. To-night Hal was full of football matters, and Allan let him talk on uninterruptedly until they had reached the corner. There:
Come on down and play some pool, suggested Hal.
But Allan shook his head. He liked pool, but with a condition in mathematics to work off it behooved him to do some studying.
Ill play some other night, he said. And then: Say, Hal, he asked, do you know a chap in our class named Burley?
Pete Burley? Yes; what about him?
Oh, nothing. Whats he like?
Like an elephant, answered Hal, disgustedly. A big brute of a chap from Texas or Montana or somewhere out that way. Hals ideas of the West were rather vague. Met him the other day; struck me as a big idiot. Well, see you to-morrow.
Hal swung off down Main Street and Allan turned toward his room, feeling quite virtuous for that he had resisted temptation in the shape of pool and was going home to toil. When he opened his door a sheet of paper torn from a blue-book fluttered to the floor. There was a pin in it and it had evidently been impaled on the door. Allan held it to the light and saw in big round, boyish characters the inscription:
Pete Burley.CHAPTER III
ON THE CINDERS
On the following Monday, Allan set out after his three-oclock recitation for Erskine Field. He stopped at his room long enough to leave his books and get his mail the Sunday letter from home usually put in its appearance on Monday afternoon and then went on out Poplar Street.
It was a fine, mild afternoon, with the sunlight sifting down through the branches of the giant elms which line the way, and a suggestion of Indian summer in the air. If he hadnt been so busy with his letter he could have found plenty to interest him on the walk to the field, but, as it was, he was deeply concerned with the news from home.
There was talk, his mother wrote, of closing down the Gold Beetle mine out in Colorado, from which distant enterprise the greater part of her income had long been derived in the shape of dividends on a large amount of stock; the gold-bearing ore had given out and the directors were to consider the course to pursue at a meeting in December. Meanwhile, his mother explained, the work had stopped, and so had the dividends, and she didnt like to consider what would happen if this source of income was shut off for all time. Allan tried to feel regretful over the matter, since his mother was clearly worried more worried than she was willing to show, had he but known it but the Gold Beetle was a long way off, it always had supplied them with money, and the idea that it was now to cease doing so seemed something quite preposterous. The Gold Beetle represented the family fortune, about all that remained after his fathers affairs had been settled.
Allan found other news more to his liking: Dorothy was getting on nicely at her new boarding-school and had survived the initial period of tragic homesickness; one of Allans friends at Hillton, now a Yale freshman, had called at the house a few days before; and Edith Cinnamon had presented the household with a litter of three lovely kittens. Edith Cinnamon was the cat, Allans particular pet, and the news of the interesting event remained in his mind after the reprehensible conduct of the Gold Beetle mine had departed from it. Mines stand merely for money, but kittens are pets, and Allan loved pets. A wonderful idea struck him: why not have his mother send him one of the kittens? He resolved to confer with Mrs. Purdy on his return; surely she would have no objections to his obtaining a room-mate to share the parlor study with him!
When he had changed his clothes for a running costume in the locker house and reached the track he found fully half a score of fellows before him. There was Hooker jogging around the back-stretch; nearer at hand was Harris practising starts; in a group at the finish of the hurdles he saw Stearns, the track-team captain, Rindgely, several fellows whose faces he knew but whose names were unknown to him, and Billy Kernahan. He drew aside to let a file of runners by and then approached the group. Rindgely nodded to him slightly, not with any suggestion of unfriendliness, but rather in the manner of one who has never been properly introduced. Billy accompanied his salutation with a critical survey of the half-clothed figure confronting him.
How are you feeling to-day? he asked.
Fine, thanks! answered Allan.
Thats the boy! Well try you at three-quarters of a mile after a while. Youd better get warmed up, and then try half a dozen starts.
While the trainer was speaking, Allan was aware of the fact that Walter Stearns was observing him with evident interest. When Billy ceased, Stearns said something to him in low tones, and the next moment Allan found himself being introduced to the track-team captain. Stearns was rather under than above medium height, with small features and alert eyes of a steel-gray shade that contrasted oddly with his black hair. Below his white trunks his legs were thin and muscular, and under the faded purple sweater his chest proved itself broad and deep. He spoke rapidly, as though his tongue had learned the secret of his legs and was given to dashes rather than to sustained efforts.
Glad to know you, Ware, he said, as he shook hands. Glad youre coming out to help us.
I dont believe Ill be much help, answered Allan.
Oh, yes; bound to. I saw you run in the handicaps. That was a mighty pretty race you made. By the way, do you know Mr. Long? And this is Mr. Monroe. And Mr. Mason. Keep in with Mason. Hes office-boy on the Purple and writes criticisms of the track team.
Allan shook hands with the three, while the group laughed at Stearnss fling at the managing editor of the college weekly. Long was a startlingly tall fellow, with a crooked nose and twinkling, yellowish eyes, and Monroe was short and thick-set, and looked ill-tempered. Mason, Allan recognized as one of a half-dozen men whom he had seen about college and as to whose identity he had been curious. Mason was the sort of fellow that attracts attention: tall, broad-shouldered, with shrewd, kindly eyes behind glasses and a firm mouth under a straight and sensitive nose. He looked very much the gentleman, and Allan was glad to make his acquaintance. He was in the dark as to what position Mason really occupied on the Purple, and so the point of Stearnss joke was lost on him. But he smiled, nevertheless, having learned that it is sometimes well to assume knowledge when one hasnt it.