ustle and confusion. Pads and nose-guards,
jerseys and coats, balls and satchels were seized and laid aside and
grabbed up again. Cries for missing apparel and paraphernalia were heard
on every side, and only a loud, peremptory command to "Shut up!" from
the head coach restored order and quietude. Then the door was thrown
open and down the narrow stairs they trooped, through the crowded lobby
where friends hemmed them about, patting the broad backs, shouting words
of cheer into their ears, and delaying them in their passage.

Into the coaches they hurried, and as the crowd about the hotel burst
into loud, ringing cheers, the whips were cracked and the journey to the
field began. The route lay along quiet, unfrequented streets where only
an occasional cheer from a college window met their advent. Restraint
had worn off now, and the fellows were chatting fast and furiously. Joel
looked out at the handsome homes and sunny street, and was aware only of
a longing to be in the fray, an impatient desire to be doing. Briscom,
the substitute centre, a youth of twenty-one summers and one hundred and
ninety-eight pounds, sat beside him.

"I was here two years ago with the freshman team," he was saying. "We
didn't do a thing to them, we youngsters, although the Varsity was
licked badly. And all during the afternoon game we sat together and
cheered, until at five o'clock I couldn't speak above a whisper. That
was a great game, that freshman contest! It took three hours and a half
to settle it. At the beginning of the second half there were only three
men on our team who had played in the first. I was one of them. I was
playing left guard. Story there was another. He gave up before the game
was through, though. I held out and when the whistle sounded, down I
went on the grass and didn't stir for ten minutes. We had two referees
that day. The first chap got hurt in a rush, and it took us half an hour
to find a fellow brave enough to take his place. That _was_ a game.
Football's tame nowadays."

Across the coach Rutland, the right guard, a big bronze-haired chap of
one hundred and ninety-six, was deep in a discussion with "Judge" Chase,
right end, on an obscure point of ruling.

"If you're making a fair catch and a player on the other side runs
against you intentionally or otherwise, you're interfered with, and the
rules give your side fifteen yards," declared Rutland.

"Not if the interference is accidental and doesn't hurt your c