CHAPTER III
A Thrilling Exploit

A PLEASANT surprise awaited the boys that evening as they went from the training table to their rooms. Under the elms in front of their dormitory, two men were pacing up and down. The close resemblance between them indicated that they were father and son. As they turned toward the boys there was an instant recognition, and they hurried forward in eager greeting.

"Mr. Quinby – Ralph," they cried in chorus.

"We can't tell you how glad we are to see you," said Bert. "What lucky wind blew you so far from California?"

"Business, as usual," responded Mr. Quinby, evidently pleased by the warmth of his welcome. "I had to attend a meeting of directors in New York, and while I was so near, I thought I'd take a day off and run down here for a look around."

"That's what he says," laughed Ralph, "but, as a matter of fact, Dad gets hungry to see the old college every once in so often, and I think he fakes up the 'business' talk just as an excuse."

"Impudent young cub, isn't he?" said Mr. Quinby with mock severity. "But I refuse to say anything in defense, on the ground that I might incriminate myself. Anyway, I'm here, and that's the main point. How are things going with you fellows?"

"Fine," was the response. "But come right on up to our rooms. We're not going to let you get away from us in a hurry, now that we've laid hands on you."

"We'll surrender," smiled Mr. Quinby. "Lead on MacDuff." And they mounted to the rooms that Bert and Dick occupied together, a floor higher up than Tom.

A flood of memories had swept over Bert at the unexpected meeting. Two years had passed since they had been closely associated and many things had happened since that time. Yet all the experiences of that memorable summer stood out in his mind as clearly as the events of yesterday.

Mr. Quinby had been the owner of a fleet of vessels plying between San Francisco and China. Needing a wireless operator on one of his ships, he had applied to the Dean of the college and he had recommended Bert, who was pursuing a course in electricity and making a specialty of wireless telegraphy. Tom and Dick had made that trip with him, and it had been replete with adventure from start to finish. At the very outset, they had been attacked by a Malay running amuck, and only their quickness and presence of mind had saved them from sudden death. Soon after clearing the harbor, they had received the S.O.S. signal, and had been able thereby to save the passengers of a burning ship. A typhoon had caught them in its grip and threatened to send them all to Davy Jones. His flesh crept yet as he recalled the tiger creeping along the deck of the animal ship after breaking loose from his cage. And, traced on his memory more deeply perhaps than anything else, was that summer evening off the Chinese coast when they had been attacked by pirates. Sometimes even yet in his dreams he saw the yellow faces of that fiendish band and heard the blows of the iron bars on their shaven skulls, when old Mac and his husky stokers had jumped into the fray.

How large a part he had played in that repulse he seldom allowed himself to dwell upon in thought and never referred to it in speech. But the country had rung with it, and his friends never tired of talking about it. And none knew better than Mr. Quinby himself that he owed the safety of his vessel and the lives of all on board to the quick wit of Bert in sending the electric current from the dynamo into the wires and hurling the screaming rascals back into their junks. His first words, after they were settled comfortably in their chairs, showed of what he had been thinking.

"Have you run up against any more pirates lately, Bert?" he asked.

"Not of the yellow kind," was the laughing response, "but it looks as though we might meet some white ones before long. They say that the 'Greys' and 'Maroons' are flying the skull and crossbones and threatening to give no quarter, when they stack up against us on the gridiron."

"Threatened men live long," said Mr. Quinby drily. "I've heard that talk before, but I notice that the Blues usually give a good account of themselves when it comes to an actual fight. It was so in my own college days. There'd be all sorts of discouraging rumors afloat and the general public would get the idea that the team was going around on crutches. But when the day of the game came, they'd go out and wipe up the field with their opponents. So I'm not worrying much for fear you'll have to walk the plank."

"You'd have thought so if you had heard the way the coach waded into us to-day," broke in Tom. "Since I heard him, I've had a new respect for the English language. I never knew it had such resources."

"There was a certain honeyed sweetness about it that was almost cloying," grinned Bert.

 
"'Twas all very well to dissemble his love,
But why did he kick us downstairs?"
 

added Dick.

Mr. Quinby laughed reminiscently.

"I've heard coaches talk," he said, "and I know that some of them are artists when it comes to skinning a man alive. They'd cut through the hide of a rhinoceros. But that is part of the game, and if a man is over-sensitive, he doesn't want to try to make a football team. I'll wager just the same that it did you fellows good."

"We licked the scrubs by 54 to 0," answered Tom. "We felt so sore that we had to take it out on somebody."

"Sure thing," commented Mr. Quinby. "Just what the coach wanted. He gets you fighting mad, until when you go out you are 'seeing red' and looking for a victim. I've been there myself and I know."

"Did you ever play on the football team while you were an undergrad?" asked Tom.

"No, I wasn't heavy enough. They needed beef in those days more than they do now. You wouldn't think it, perhaps," with a glance at his present generous girth, "but I was a slender young sprout at that time, and I had to content my athletic ambitions with track work and baseball. But I was crazy over football, and I was always there to root and yell for the team when the big games were pulled off. And many a time since I've traveled from San Francisco all the way to New York to see a Thanksgiving Day game. Sometimes, the result has made me want to go away somewhere and hide, but more often the good old Blue has come out on top, and then I've been so hoarse from yelling that I haven't been able to talk above a whisper for a week. Of course it wouldn't be a good thing for the game if one team won all the time, and as long as we cop about two out of three, I'm not doing any kicking. It isn't often that we lose two years in succession, and I'm looking for you fellows now to come across with a victory."

"We'll do our best not to disappoint you," said Bert. "It's a sure thing that we haven't as heavy a line as we've had in other years, and for that reason we'll have to play more of an open game. But we've got a dandy new shift that will give the other fellows something to think about when we spring it on them, and probably Hendricks has one or two aces up his sleeve. I heard him tell Reddy the other day that he was planning a variation of the forward pass that he thought would be a corker."

"Well," said Mr. Quinby, "we'll hope so. It's almost as hard to forecast results in football as it is in baseball. The game's never over until the referee blows his whistle. I've seen teams touted as certain winners go all to pieces on the day of the game. Then, again, there have been times when the team didn't seem to have as much of a chance as a blind man in a dark room hunting for a black cat that wasn't there. But they'd go out just the same and stand the other fellows on their heads."

"You must have seen a lot of sparkling plays in your time," remarked Tom enviously.

"I surely have," assented Mr. Quinby. "Perhaps the best of all was one that thrills me now when I think of it, although I didn't enjoy it so much at the time, because it did the Blues out of a victory just when they thought they had it tucked away safely."

"Tell us about it," came in a chorus from the boys.

"Well, it was this way," and he lighted a fresh cigar as he settled back for a "fanning bee." "The 'Greys' came up to meet us that year with one of the best teams they ever turned out. They seemed to have everything, weight and strength and speed, and, on the 'dope,' we didn't have a chance in the world. They had gone through their schedule with the smaller colleges like a prairie fire, and the scores they piled up had been amazing. Their goal line hadn't been crossed all season, and all the newspaper writers tipped them to slaughter us.

"We had a dandy captain that year, though, and he, together with the coaches, had done wonders with the material on hand. The old Blue spirit that never knows when it is licked was there too. The game was on our grounds and although the 'Greys' had an immense delegation in their stands, we outnumbered and outyelled them. Say, maybe we didn't give the boys a send-off when they trotted through the gates and began passing and falling on the ball in practice. If we felt any doubts, that yell didn't show it.

"From the time the ball was kicked off it was a fight for blood. And you can imagine whether we fellows went crazy when we saw that our team was winning. We got off to a flying start, and, instead of having to defend our own goal, we took the offensive and kept the ball in the enemy's territory most of the time. We scored a goal from the field, and although the 'Greys' fought desperately, we seemed to have their number.

"It was the same in the second half. We downed them when they tried to rush us, blocked when they kicked, and stopped them in their attempt to skirt the ends. It was near the end of the last half, and there was only five minutes left to play. It looked as though it were 'all over but the shouting,' and you can bet that we were doing enough of that. The Blue stands were a good imitation of a lunatic asylum.

"But here Fate took a hand, and two minutes later we wanted to die. The ball was in our hands, halfway down the field. As we had already made one score, while the 'Greys' had nothing, all we had to do was to play safe and the game was ours.

"Peters, our captain, was a splendid fellow and a 'dead game sport.' It seemed to him a little like 'babying' to fritter away the few minutes remaining in safety play. The more generous instinct prevailed, and he 'took a chance.' He shot the ball back to the quarter. He in turn passed it to the back, who got in a perfect kick that sent it far down the field and close to the enemy's goal. One of the 'Greys' made a grab at it, but it was one of those twisting deceptive punts and bounded out of his hands down toward the southern line. One of his mates was just behind him and, quick as lightning, he caught the ball on the bound, tucked it under his arm and scooted down the field toward our goal line.

"Our forwards of course had run down under the kick and had got past the ball, expecting to pick it up when they saw that it had been muffed. So the 'Grey' runner was well past them before they could stop their momentum and turn in their tracks. The back who had kicked the ball was near the northern side, too far away to interfere, and Lamar, the runner, covering the ground like a deer, hugged the southern line.

"There were only two men in his way, and they made the mistake of keeping too close together, so that, as Lamar neared them, he made a superb dodge and slipped by both of them at once. Now he had a clear field before him, but with forty yards yet to go.