UNINVITED GUESTS

Presently Ted stopped laughing, separated himself from the tree to which he had been clinging desperately for several minutes, and disentangled himself from the folds of Jerry’s sheet. He had tried very hard to catch up with the terror-stricken Jordan and his companions in order, as he explained later to Jerry, to throw one final scare into them, but, handicapped by his ghost’s costume, which got horribly clinging and impeding, he never had a chance! He had collided with numerous trees and been slashed by many branches, and he had laughed so much that he was weak in the knees, but he was thoroughly pleased and satisfied with the adventure’s outcome as he made his way back to the Cabin.

Inside, he found Jerry looking somewhat ruefully at the contents of a frying pan which he held to the light of a lantern. Across the overturned table lay the sheet he had worn and over the floor were distributed tin dishes and cups, slices of bread and numerous other objects, amongst which were two caps that had been forgotten in the sudden and enthusiastic exodus.

“Looks like we were a bit late,” said Jerry. “They left this steak on the stove and it’s mighty nigh burned to a crisp!”

“Let’s see.” Ted examined the charred object and poked it with a fork. “Huh, that’s all right,” he said. “I like my steak well-done.”

“Well, you’re sure going to get it that way!” answered Jerry. Then he pointed the frying pan accusingly at the stove. “Look what they did,” he said. “Used my potatoes!”

Ted gazed at them appreciatively. “Glad they did,” he chuckled. “We wouldn’t have had any if they hadn’t. And, gee, look at the fried onions! Sort of――sort of crispy, but――――”

“Crispy!” snorted Jerry. “They’re almost burned up! Those fellows haven’t any more idea of cooking than――than――――”

“Oh, never mind, Jerry! Let’s get the table set again and fall to. Honest, I’m hungry enough to eat anything. Don’t object to having your bread a bit soiled, do you? Give me a hand here. Good thing these dishes weren’t china, I’ll say!”

Jerry’s first act, however, was to close and secure the door. “I don’t reckon they’ve got any idea of coming back,” he explained grimly, “but it’s just as well not to take any chances! They pried that staple out, but I can drive it back again.” Then he gave a hand to righting the overturned banquet board and rescuing the things from the floor and in a jiffy two very hungry youths were satisfying that hunger with steak and onions, potatoes and bread and steaming hot coffee.

“They sure did cook this steak a bit too long,” said Ted, “but there’s plenty of it and we can work around the burned places. Reckon there’s most four pounds here, Jerry.”

Jerry nodded, his mouth too full to permit of speech, and Ted, pouring himself a second cup of coffee, went on with a chuckle. “Reckon those fellows have stopped running yet?” he asked. “Gosh, the way they lit out of here and beat it down the hill was beautiful! Say, what do you suppose they really thought, Jerry?”

Jerry grinned as he speared a potato on his fork. “Reckon,” he replied, “they didn’t stop long enough to do any thinking, Ted. They’re doing that now. About this time they’re deciding that what they heard was a cow and that what they saw was maybe another cow, and each one is explaining that he wouldn’t have run if the rest hadn’t! But I’ll bet there isn’t one of them that’s saying ‘Let’s go back!’”

“Reckon not!” laughed Ted. “What time is it? Gee, it’s nearly half-past six! They’ll never make school in time for supper, Jerry!”

“Well, I ain’t worriting none,” answered the other placidly. “They hadn’t any business breaking in here that way and making free with my potatoes and coffee!”

There was, as it afterwards proved, no dessert, but, as Jerry inquired, where would they have put it if there had been? So, finally, they dragged themselves protestingly from the table, washed up and put the Cabin in order and, with their costumes in a bundle again, put out the lanterns――all save one――and departed. One lantern went with them as far as the road and made the return journey much easier. It was Ted who broached the subject of publicity.

“Going to let Purves know?” he asked on the way back.

Jerry considered a moment. Then: “Reckon not,” he decided. “If they found out for certain that they’d been hoaxed they might try it again some time. As it stands now, Ted, they won’t want to. They may say it was cows, but they’ll never be certain enough to go there again after dark!”

“All right,” agreed Ted, somewhat disappointed, however. “I won’t say anything. But――but, gee, I’d sure like to!”

Jerry and Ted parted at the landing, Ted hurrying off in his canoe to explain his absence from supper and Jerry returning to Baldwin. There he replaced the borrowed sheets and then did some studying before Tom returned with Joe and Tub. The first two had supped in town and were in fine fettle, but Tub was pessimistic and gloomy, and when the conversation settled on the subject of the afternoon’s new plays Tub was strongly opposed to them, and told why at some length. As always, Joe instantly accepted the challenge and took the other side of the argument and for nearly an hour Jerry sleepily listened to the debate. Tom offered few opinions, but contented himself with egging the disputants on. Like many former arguments conducted in Number 7, this one reached an indecisive end, and Joe, yawning, declared himself off to slumber.

“You coming, Tub?” he asked.

“Sure am!”

“Get a move on then. Night, Jerry. Night, Tom. Retain your precious ignorance and be happy. As the poet hath it, ‘Be good――――’”

“The poet says come on to bed,” interrupted Tub coldly.

“‘Be good, sweet child, and let who will be clever.’ Isn’t that it? And then something about――about something else, and――――”

“For the love of mud, come on!” wailed Tub, shoving Joe doorward.

“Yes, Officer, remove that man!” commanded Tom sternly.

“‘And so make life, death and the vast forever,’” chanted Joe, resisting removal, but unsuccessfully, “‘one grand, sweet song!’”

There was a final scuffle, the door crashed shut and quiet reigned. Tom’s grin faded and he yawned widely. Then he looked across at Jerry, and: “What do _you_ think of the new plays?” he asked.

“Who, me?” came sleepily from the bed.

“Yes, Little Bright Eyes. What’s your opinion? Or haven’t you any? Not that I care much, you know, but just by way of conversation.”

“I reckon they’re all right, a couple of them. That Number 19 is too――too――too――――”

“What do you think you are? A locomotive? Too what?”

“I couldn’t think of it. Too complicated. Looks to me like it’s too slow, too.”

“Well, I didn’t see it, of course. Maybe you’re right. Did it go at all to-day?”

“A couple of times. Reckon it might go at first and then the other team would sense it.”

“Why don’t you tell Thorne?” laughed Tom.

“He wouldn’t like it, would he?” inquired Jerry earnestly.

“Well, he might be slightly huffed, unless you had something better to offer,” answered Tom, chuckling. Jerry blinked at the ceiling a moment. Then he said: “Reckon I’ve got a way to make a forward pass that’s better than that, anyhow.”

“_You_ have?”

“Mh-mh.”

“Then get up out of that, you lazy chump, and show me! Of course you just think you have, but I’d like to see it. Here’s some paper. Got your pen? Well, here’s mine. Sit down and draw your picture.”

Jerry rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sank into a chair by the table. “Maybe it ain’t no――any good,” he murmured, “but it’s like this.”

Five minutes later Tom took the piece of scrawled paper from him and laid it between the leaves of a book.

“I’m not a football expert, Jeremiah,” he said, “and I guess there must be something wrong with that play. If there isn’t, why hasn’t Thorne used it?”

“Maybe it ain’t any better than lots of others,” said Jerry. “I reckon there’s about a hundred plays possible, and most of them don’t amount to anything. Likely that’s one of them.”

“Must be,” allowed Tom. “And yet――――” He stopped, frowned thoughtfully and rescued the rough diagram that Jerry had drawn from its concealment. “I don’t know much football, as I say, but I know enough to tell you that this looks like a perfectly plausible play. How did you happen to think of it?”

“I was watching those other plays this afternoon and it looked to me like a couple of them were too――too――――”

“Complicated.”

“Yeah, I never can remember that word! There was one Mr. Thorne called Number 19. I reckon it would puzzle the enemy all right, but it has to be worked mighty smooth or else the fellers get all tangled up with each other. The two half backs and the full back have to run diagonally forward toward the end of the line and the quarter back has to run diagonally back toward the end of the line――――”

Tom held a hand to his forehead. “That’s too much for me!”

“Well, that’s the way it is, and you see the quarter back has to cross the others――――”

“Complicated is exactly the word for it!” laughed Tom. “They get mixed up, do they?”

“Sort of: leastways, they did sometimes. I’m thinking that if it was in a game and every one was sort of excited they’d be likely to get right tarrigated.”

“Right――_what_?”

“Tarrigated,” replied Jerry.

“What’s that mean? Confused? Gee, you have some great words, Jeremiah!” Tom looked at the paper in his hand. “Well, this thing of yours looks simple enough. Don’t believe any one would get ‘tarrigated’ pulling that off. I’m going to show this to Hal Mansfield to-morrow and see what he thinks of it.”

Jerry looked dubious. “I don’t reckon I’d do that,” he demurred.

“Why not? Or, as you’d say, ‘how come?’”

“I reckon it ain’t any good, Tom. I didn’t aim to have any one see it.”

“What you aimed makes no never mind, boy. You get to bed and leave it to me,” replied Tom firmly. “Of course it stands to reason that there’s something wrong with it that you and I don’t see, but then again there may not be, and we don’t want to miss any tricks. Anyhow, Hal will know.”

Jerry didn’t let Captain Mansfield’s verdict keep him awake a moment after his head touched the pillow, and the next morning he had practically forgotten all about that diagramed play of his, and, since it happened that he didn’t encounter Tom between breakfast and dinner, it was not recalled to his mind. Even at dinner the subject was not introduced, and it was not until Jerry reached the gymnasium at a little before three that he heard any more of it. Then, having got into his togs――there would be a half hour before the beginning of practice, and he meant to devote it to trying some punts――he encountered Manager Naughton on the stairs. Naughton constantly wore an expression of worry and harassment these days, and spoke in brief and hurried words.

“’Lo, Benson! Thorne see you d’rector’s room ri’ ’way!”

He plunged on down the stairs agitatedly, leaving Jerry blinking after him and trying to make sense of the message. When he succeeded he crossed the corridor and knocked at the partly opened door with little joy. There were so many things the coach could say to him that he didn’t want to hear!

“Come in!” Mr. Thorne and Hal Mansfield looked up from the paper they were bending over as Jerry entered. “Oh, that you, Benson?” asked the coach crisply. He thrust out a foot, hooked it about the leg of a chair and pulled it toward the flat desk. “Sit down. This your work?”

Jerry saw with surprise that approached consternation that the paper was that on which he had rudely drawn his play last evening. He nodded. “Yes, sir, I reckon,” he answered.

“Don’t you know?” demanded Mr. Thorne, frowning.

Jerry gulped and again nodded. “Yes, sir, I reck――_yes_, sir!”

Mansfield chuckled and Mr. Thorne frowned again and thrust a pencil in Jerry’s fingers. “All right. Explain it, Benson.”

“Sir?”

“Explain it! You worked it out, didn’t you? Well, let’s hear about it. I want to know if I’ve got it right.”

“Yes, sir. Well, you see, this feller here――――”

“Quarter back? Go ahead.”

“He grabs the ball from Fat Norris and steps out a bit――――”

“Why?”

“Because he’s going to throw it to the left half back, and left half back he goes behind this feller――full back――and if he didn’t full back would be in the way.”

“I see. Then what?”

“Well, then this right half back he scoots around here like this. And――――”

“Outside tackle?”

“I reckon so.” Jerry glanced doubtfully at the coach, but the latter merely nodded. Jerry took a fresh breath and went on. “And this right end he goes, too, and the pair of them go back a ways, maybe ten or fifteen yards and catch the ball that this feller throws to them. One of ’em does, I mean. You see, they sort of spread out like.”

“What about the rest of the team?” asked the coach inexorably. “What do they do?”

Jerry studied the diagram for a moment. “Well, of course, these fellers in the middle they hold the other fellers back. Then the quarter back, after he’s tossed the ball to the left half back, he runs out here and keeps the end on the other team from getting back to worry the feller that’s making the throw. It――it’s a forward-pass play.” Jerry looked anxiously at Mr. Thorne. Possibly, he reflected, he had delayed that information too long. But the coach didn’t express surprise. Probably he had already surmised it.

“A double-pass forward,” said the coach. “All right. Now what about the full back and the left end?”

“The full back runs around the other end, this way, to make it look like the ball was going there, and the right――no, left end, he blocks his man a minute and then he goes through and tries to get around to where these fellers are to maybe help them.”

“You have only two men, then, eligible to take the throw?” asked Mansfield.

“I reckon so. Maybe this feller――this quarter back might take it if no one give――gave him any trouble,” added Jerry naïvely.

“He might, Benson,” agreed the coach. “But he would have to be certain that he was at least a yard behind the line when he took the ball from center. On the whole, I think he may be eliminated as a receiver of the pass. But what about your left end, boy? Why can’t he be in on it? What’s to keep him from taking the throw if he’s uncovered?”

Jerry looked puzzled. “I reckon he could, sir, only it looked to me like he’d ought to keep the other tackle from coming back here and messing things up. If he went right on down the field this feller would come through, wouldn’t he?”

“I’m afraid he would,” agreed the coach, smiling, “but why not send your full back across to look after the opposing tackle and end? Then let your left end go down and make a third man eligible for the pass. Left half would then have three points at which to throw: one here, well out; that’s the right half; one here, back of tackle position; that’s right end; and one over here on the other side of the field, the left end. Doesn’t that make your play more likely to succeed? It provides three chances instead of two.”

Jerry nodded. “I reckon so, sir,” he agreed. But he didn’t sound convinced, and there was a moment of silence while all three studied the plan before them. Finally Hal Mansfield spoke.

“Coach, I think Benson’s way’s the best. Now look here―――― Hold on, let’s make a new diagram.” He took a fresh sheet of paper and drew rapidly. “Here’s how I see it, sir. If Cumbridge suspects a forward she’ll play her ends five yards back. If she does her left end is out of the play so far as the thrower is concerned. That leaves only her left tackle to come through on him. Well, we provide for him by sending quarter across. He makes the throw to left half and then runs over here to block off the tackle. That makes that end pretty secure. But if we send our left end down the field we’re depending on the full back to take the opposing right tackle. They’ll meet back of the line and if full back misses him――――”

“Hold on,” interrupted the coach. “When does full back start?”

They turned to Jerry. “He don’t start until left half has the ball,” he answered firmly. “I figure that if right half and right end start when the ball starts the other fellers are going to say ‘That’s a fake sure as shooting,’ and they’ll wait and see where the ball goes. But when the ball gets to left half back here, and full back, who’s standing almost in front of him, sets out to run the other way, why, those other fellers are going to get the idea that the ball’s gone with him, or, anyway, that it’s going that same way.”

“Sounds fair,” mused the coach. “Your idea, Mansfield, is that it’s better to make the throw certain even if it’s confined to only two receivers?”

“Yes, sir. I believe it’s more than half the battle to have the thrower protected until he has got the ball away. When you have to side-step and dodge opponents who have come through on you, you just can’t judge direction or distance properly. You’re hurried and you take chances. I think it’s better to have two men on the receiving end than three in this case. Anyway, I’d certainly like to see this play tried out that way.”

“Maybe you’re right. Yes, I think you are. It looks to me as if these two men ought to be able to get away and stay free long enough for the ball to reach them. It looks like a pretty quick pass, and it certainly has the merit of being unexpected. There’s mighty little in the start of it to suggest a forward. In fact, it has all the appearance of―――― By Jove! Look here, fellows, why can’t that develop into a hidden punt as well as a pass? See here, our ends start down when the ball is snapped, Benson, or whoever’s playing left half, moves back to kicking position, quarter blocks the center after making the pass, full back guards on the left and right half on the right! By Jupiter, that’s a play that will fool them! Come on!” Mr. Thorne seized the diagram and thrust it into a pocket. “Let’s try it out!”